Uzumaki Two Face
by Aberron
Summary: Naruto has a new bloodline that allows him to change genders!  Sadly, he has no idea how to stop himself from changing, add in Hinata and her overprotective father, Sadistic medical ninja, and you get one ugly ball of complicated.  NaruHina.  Sequel up.


I do not own Naruto or any of the other anime series that I frequent. If I did, then perhaps they would lack some obvious problems. But I am not blaming them, am I? Well, if this statement were false you could dang well garuntee that Ranma would actually have a solid ending.

This Naruto fanfiction occurs right after episode 485 or so in the manga. I do plan to remain close to canon, but this is most definitely going a step in a different direction. Scratch that, that's an absolutely.

Tsunade was smiling. She had earlier sent Shizune to take all of her paperwork to her favorite ninja to pick on, so she could make someone else do the simple task of signing her name and stamping her seal. Yes, the best part of the whole deal was that the poor man was still utterly clueless to the fact that she was pulling this over him. Yes, poor Sai didn't get the fact that the Hokage was dumping her work on him. He had the added benefit of being able to duplicate her seals and signature, almost perfectly.

All of this left her with free time in her office, when she was supposedly doing her work. So, for a hobby she had started looking through the many secret parts of the room, looking for more of the messages her grandfather left behind for the following Hokages. So far she had found a scroll from him that detailed how to deal with invasions that came through the now non-existent waterfall country, and another that spoke of a legendary ninja that had lead the small nation. Someday she would have to tell someone about all of this, but he seemed to be the kind of ninja lost to the record books.

Ignoring the obvious bookshelves, she started looking in the secret portions of one of her filing cabinets. Sure enough, there were at least five compartments in there, all of which trapped and security protected. She had to heal herself from a few poison darts, but she managed to get one of them open. Well, she had at last found the stash of icha icha that Sarutobi had left behind. Strangely though, it also had markings dating back further. Still, it was a piece of Jiraiya, and she missed him dearly still.

One of the other compartments had a scroll from Minato. The fourth Hokage had never truly spent much time in here. He was given the job and then involved in a war. Few if any signs had remained of him. The scroll was well preserved, and even had a lot of chakra still attached to it. Minato must have put a lot of emotion into this to have left that much of a chakra signature.

Unrolling it, she came to the first line.

_Mina-kun,_

_I must tell you that I loved our dinner last night. It was glorious. I am not so sad that we can share these tender moments even in the midst of war. I think that Kakashi is getting too curious about my pregnancy. He is a great friend, but he must not know of our child yet. He is a member of ANBU, and you know better than anyone how their memories can be found by the right people. Please, for my sake send him away on a mission until we can settle this._

_Honestly, with how much trouble we are going to just to hide our union, you would think we could be careful with our friends. Minato, I must warn you about our child. If he inherits his great-grandfather's kekkei genkai, then he will have a very troubled life. Or at least if it is a he. The bloodline does not show up in girls born into the family, only the boys. You must warn him, just in case he does have the bloodline. Upon his eighteenth birthday, if it is a boy, which I hope I am not made aware of until he is born!_(Tsunade saw a lipstick mark placed here) _Anyways, Minato, he must be warned before his eighteenth birthday. If he is a true Uzumaki he will have it activate then. I only fear that with the rest of the clan dead he will have to learn it himself. So I write this to you, to make sure you don't forget. Plus, I know that you are going to be Hokage for a very long time. I know I can entrust you with this. _

_We should go out for another wonderful dinner again soon. Just don't you dare die on me out there, Minato. You might be Hokage, but if you don't come back in one piece those Iwa nins aren't even going to compare to how angry I will be. _

_Kushi-chan_

Tsunade had wide eyes. Naruto had a kekkei genkai? Worse, she had no idea what it was. Digging through the rest of the compartments, she found nothing that would lead her to an answer. Shrugging, she was not too worried. Naruto was seventeen still and wouldn't turn eighteen until the anniversary of the Kyuubi attack.

Looking at the calendar, she cursed loudly. Tomorrow was the anniversary of the attack of the Kyuubi. Naruto was turning eighteen, and she had less than twenty four hours until this supposed bloodline would activate. Cursing, she stomped over to her desk and tried to settle her thoughts. Unfortunately they did not, and looking out the window she could see the head of Minato, the Yondaime, staring out over the village.

She was sad. Minato died for this village, and thankfully some of the village was starting to accept naruto as their hero. Sadly, Kushina was gone too, and her secrets would lie with her. She had been the last ninja from waterfall village, one that had been rescued near the start of the third great ninja war. She had of course been found by Minato, and had most likely taken all of the information on this to the grave.

Thinking, Tsunade went back to the letters she had found from her grandfather to the ninja leader of the waterfall country. It was addressed to a 'Two-faced Uzumaki'. Tsunade had to find out more. This was bad, especially if it was a bloodline that would take her most effective frontline ninja out of commission for a while. Though, try as she might, she couldn't find anything. At nightfall she decided that it could not wait any longer. She had to tell Naruto. She thought with irony that she had in fact worked like a madwomen, just as if she would have if she had kept the paperwork.

"Shizune! Get me Naruto right away, along with two bottles of sake!" The booze was for her shattered nerves, and Naruto's. "And tell him no excuses this time!" She really was going to need a drink. Then she realized that someone might know about the bloodline. "Shizune!" She could hear her stop at the end of the hall in exasperation. "Bring Kakashi as well and a third bottle!"

Shizune just sighed in frustration. There was no way she going to make it to her date tonight now.

Naruto was getting ready. Tomorrow might actually be the first birthday he didn't have something terrible happen to him. He had just saved the village from Pein, in front of everybody! Surely that meant he didn't have to put up with any vandalization this year. So, for his eighteenth birthday party he might actually celebrate. He could invite all of his friends, maybe even that Hinata girl that always stared at him.

Shrugging, he went back to perfecting his masterful recipe of ramen with a small amount of green things on the side. If it was his birthday, he was going to eat as much ramen as humanly…well inhumanly possible. He swore that the fox chakra made him able to eat more. He had just gotten the water to the right consistency when someone banged on his door. Grabbing a spare kunai from the many scattered over his house, he approached the door soundlessly.

"Naruto! The hokage wants you in her office, right now! Bring this sake with you, I have to go find Kakashi!" He heard an angry Shizune say past the door, leaving something leaning against it. He opened the door in time to see Shizune moving across the rooftops towards the training grounds at high speed. She had left him three extra large bottles of sake. Naruto sighed, hoping he didn't get a mission on his eighteenth birthday. Actually he hoped that someone might remember his birthday and not the Kyuubi this year.

Grabbing the large containers he moved to the hokage tower with no more time wasted. In his free hand was his ramen, no way would he leave that behind after spending precious time cooking it. He slurped this as he entered the doors to Tsunade's office, walking quickly but not too quickly, afraid that he might spill his ramen. She was not facing him, rummaging through a stack of old and faded scrolls from the bookshelf.

"Baa-chan! Please tell me I don't have a mission tomorrow!" He yelled, happily making her twitch her eyebrow as she turned around.

"Don't tempt me, gaki." She said back, giving him a slight glare. "I called you and Kakashi to my office because I found out something and I hope he knows about it. It is about your parents."

Naruto stopped smiling. "What's wrong, is there something coming to kill me?"

Tsunade sat heavily in her chair. "I honestly don't know Naruto. I do know that you might have a kekkei genkai that we haven't been aware of. If you do, it is going to activate on your eighteenth birthday. Your mother wrote your father about it, but I can't find anything that will tell me what it is or how it works, other than the fact that it only carries to the males of the family."

Shizune came into the office, looking haggard. "I found Anko but not Kakashi. She really does not like it when someone interrupts her training. Tsunade, you can find Kakashi on your own. I have a date tonight and I am not staying another minute." She said flatly. She had a few burn marks on her from where Anko had tagged her.

Naruto laughed. No one else did, but then again no one else seemed to think it was that funny. Tsunade gave him a small tap on the head, enough to send him crashing into the ground. "Gaki! He might know about your bloodline! Other than that I know a little bit about who started it, your great grandfather." She showed Naruto the note. His eyes scanned the short handwriting, the kanji almost flowing into one another. He smiled as he looked at his mother's handwriting, realising that he must have gotten that from her.

"Two-face? Why would my great grandpa be called that?"

"I don't know, gaki. I have Shukaku Nara on it, but he is being predictably lazy. I don't know if he will have anything in time for tomorrow." She scruffed the hair on his head. "So I wanted to warn you. If this bloodline actually activates, then I want to be able to understand it. For all we know you might have a new dojutsu or something."

Naruto actually thought this over. "Baa-chan, im gonna just lock up my house. Can I come and see you in the morning about this?" Naruto just figured he could hide, lock up his house, just like he did every year in Konoha. Whatever happened he would probably just be able to hide or deal with no problem.

Tsunade nodded. "You better be here early, Naruto. I have a meeting with the clan heads at nine." She sighed. "Find Kakashi and try to see if he knows anything more." She paused, and then bopped him on the head once more, "and stay out of trouble."

Naruto put a hand on his head. "Alright, baa-chan" He looked at the scroll in his hands still. "Can I keep this?"

Tsunade smiled. "It's yours. I am glad that we found something of your parent's that you can finally keep. Just don't let anyone else see it, or else they might realise who your parents really are."

Naruto came up and gave Tsunade a hug, smiling about this good fortune. As he turned around, he heard her say one last thing to him. "Happy Birthday, Naruto."

With a grin he left the office. Rushing across Konoha, he went right past the apartments he lived at and straight to the bar. Kakashi had a lot of friends who had passed away when the Kyuubi attacked. Naruto had a pretty good idea of where he might be, and dropped down right in front of the darker side of the street. Sure enough, there was Gai and Kakashi and a whole bunch of other older ninja, and a lot of empty bottles of sake. Chouji's father had already passed out on top of a large table, and Shukaku Nara was soon to follow.

He would not get any information on what Shukaku was working on tonight, that was for sure. Kakashi was there in the middle of the bar, head down and looking very sloshed. Naruto debated for a moment if this was the right thing, but decided it was worth it. A drunk Kakashi still answered your questions, they just never made any sense.

"Kakashi-sensei!" He called, sitting next to him. The older nin was red in the face, his one eye rolling in laughter to something that Gai had said.

"Naruuuuto!" He said in a sing-song voice. "Wash bringsh you here?"

He was very drunk, apparently. "I just had a question about my mom. Something about a kekkei genkai she had in her family."

"Ish not shometing I knoooooooow…" Kakashi swayed a little bit as he tried to say the last word.

"Sorry for bothering you sensei. Ill ask you in the morning. I don't think you can give me an answer right now." He moved and started leaving the bar.

"Not in zha morning, N*hic*ruto, laaaaterr…" He heard as he left the bar. Well, he could be nice to Kakashi on his birthday. He would ask him at noon or later. His hangover would probably last until then.

Sighing, he went back to his apartment and get out the equipment from last year. He had bought typhoon survival gear for his apartment, to keep the windows from being broken. Now he again attached these, securing his house from anything normal. Finally, he made another few cups of ramen. It was the best way of killing time when he was home and not training.

As midnight approached, he waited to hear if anyone was going to vandalise his home. Strangely, not a single person did anything to it. He felt someone approach his front door, and leave something, but he wasn't going to get to it yet. It took too long to unbarricade the door. He would get to whatever it was later.

Settling into the middle of his living room, he started meditating. It was not the sort of meditation that lead to meeting the Kyuubi, but it was the kind that was very good at dealing with stress. In fact, it was less meditation and more of daydreaming,

Something felt very odd as he sat down, however. His body felt wrong, as if something was out of place. Feeling for his chakra, he felt a lot of it gathering noticeably near his heart. He tried to control it, but it seemed to resist this. His further attempts only made the buildup go faster. It continued, forcing past his attempts to stop it. The chakra didn't feel like his prisoner, but it certainly did not feel very wanted either.

Maybe this was his bloodline activating. Trying to remember his experiences with these, he knew that some of them were painful in some way to the user. This was starting to become uncomfortable. His breathing was quickening, more of his body's energy being drawn into this. He did not like how it was starting to sting and burn inside, and so he forced himself to try to stop it. Naruto drew upon his mostly active chakra and forced it into action against this.

That turned out to be a bad idea. His bones in his appendages ground against each other, almost as if they were in motion. He nearly passed out when his skull started shifting. The pain was unbearable, but he forced himself to continue to stop this. His bones kept moving, agonizingly slowly. The real kicker came and got him when all of his insides just sort of took a spin. If that wasn't enough, the sudden pressure in his lungs and throat would have been enough. Naruto collapsed, unconscious as the pain swept him away. His last conscious thought was something along the lines of 'wow, I just lost a fight to myself.'

Naruto groaned as he woke up the next morning. Whatever had been hurting was not hurting so bad now, though. He slowly got to his feet, which felt different somehow. His balance felt a little off, heck everything felt a little off. Something was tickling his lower back, so he looked back to see if any sort of insect or creature was attacking him. All he found was some red hair, which was extremely confusing until he realized the source of it: his own head.

He ran to the bathroom, wondering if a change in hair was his kekkei genkai. If all it did was change his hair it was stupid and useless. Stepping into the bathroom, he felt a couple of other things wrong, but he did not think much of it until he saw his face in the mirror. He was a girl. A freaking girl. Red hair framed a face he could almost recognize as his own. The whisker marks were hardly visible, faint outlines in his cheeks. He almost looked exactly like he did under the effects of his sexy no jutsu, but he had to initiate that himself. Perhaps this kekkei genkai activated his own jutsus without him wanting it to.

Focusing, he tried to release the technique. It didn't work. Focusing again, he put as much chakra as he could into the technique. All that this did was make his body glow with the energy he had called forth. Alright, so it was not a form of his technique. Maybe it was just a genjutsu. Looking below his face, he could see that his body was shorter and smaller, seemingly delicate and without very much muscle tone compared to what his body really looked like.

"Mendokuse!" He said, copying shikamaru for a moment. He froze when he heard his voice. It was very high pitched and girly. It was completely unlike anything he had done previously. His sexy no jutsu didn't alter his voice, it just was difficult to disguise his voice as a girl's. This was far beyond that. Whatever this technique was, it wasn't something Naruto knew. He sighed, wondering how he was gonna figure this out. Tsunade probably knew, but then again he was supposed to meet her anyway. Looking at the clock, he saw that it was quarter to nine. He was late.

Rushing into his closet he grabbed his clothes and realized that they would not fit someone so short. Grumbling, he grabbed some of his old clothes from deeper in the closet, pulling on a black shirt and some orange pants. Shoes proved annoying until he just grabbed some sandals and tied them obnoxiously tight. Right by the door he saw what had been left there last night. It was a small box, ornamented in nice wrapping paper. It was a present, he realized. Unfortunately he did not have very much time right now, and so he just tossed it back into his apartment. Then it was out the door and across the rooftops to the hokage tower. Running in this form absolutely sucked. He felt like he was going to fall over at any moment, his balance carrying him forward and making it really hard to land correctly. Suffice to say, Naruto only got to the tower a couple minutes before nine, when the clan meeting was supposed to happen.

Rushing in, Naruto ran past Shizune without further thought, and just ran into the office. Tsunade was getting out of her chair, and eyed Naruto with a serious stink eye. "Young lady, I can't help you right now, so whatever it is you need just tell Shizune." Tsunade didn't recognize Naruto. This did not help at all, he needed her help to figure this out.

"Stupid baa-chan! It's me, Naruto!" His high pitched voice did not carry this well. Tsunade chose to react by punching him as was her normal habit. Naruto found that it was harder to dodge when his balance was off. With a scream and a groan, he crashed into the wall. "Ow! Baa-baa that hurt!"

Tsunade was grinning. Naruto brushed himself off and stood up. His healing factor was already kicking in, making the effects of the hit almost invisible. "Only you could get back up so quickly from one of those. Yeah, you're Naruto." She came over and started looking him over, making him feel uncomfortable. Then she grabbed his cheeks and pulled until his skin was stretched all the way. He cried out in pain as she let go, freeing him to try to get feeling back into his cheeks.

"Well Naruto I would say that you have a very solid jutsu right there. Get rid of it and tell me if anything happened last night. I need to know before I go into this council meeting." She said, a serious look on her face.

"But, this is what happened! I can't change back! I don't know what kind of jutsu this is, but it won't come off!" Naruto whined.

Tsunade sighed. She seemed to be in thought over something, and paced a little before looking at the clock again. "I have no time, Naruto. The best I can tell you is that I have Shukaku Nara on it. We can check it out later. I have to leave now, so maybe you should just stay here." She started walking out the door, and then stopped. She turned around with a manic grin on her face. "Naruto, you said that you have no idea if you can change back?"

Naruto nodded. "I don't like it very much baa-chan."

She reached into her closet in the office, and pulled out a box. "Naruto, I'm going to make you an ANBU. Put this on and you can use that jutsu you are in as another of my personal ANBU guards." She started to hand him a mask with a cat face on it, but then stopped and pulled out another one with a fox on it. She smiled as she handed it to him.

"Baa-chan I don't think this is a good idea. They will know it's me the moment they see the mask." His new voice was great for whining.

"Naruto no one is going to think you are a red headed girl. Even better, who is going to guess that you are actually an ANBU. As long as you shut your mouth and actually treat people with respect no one is going to guess." She pushed Naruto out of the door. "And for kami's sake call me something respectful."

Naruto sighed and put on the fox mask, and a spare chuunin vest. At least now he looked mostly like an ANBU. Tsunade walked out and motioned to Naruto. Naruto just sighed in a girlish way and followed.

The Council meeting was long, boring, and hardly talked about anything important. The only thing that Naruto payed attention to was Shikamaru's father coming in very late and sitting in the back, immediately falling asleep. He didn't look like he had spent any time looking for answers to help him. Other than that they spoke a little bit about the rebuilding of the government buildings after Pein's attack. All he had to do was sit there and look like a guardian. No one even noticed him, besides the first few glances everybody gave as Tsunade walked in at the start of the meeting.

It was a very weird feeling to not be noticed. This was one of the first times this had ever occurred in his life, that he could look out and not have people judge him or look at him first. Taking in the moment, he swept his blue eyes over the clan heads. At the head of the table, there were the Hyuuga and Aburame clans. Following that was the empty Senju and Uchiha seats. Going past the high table he could see Akamichi, Yamanaka, Nara(who was hiding in the very back), and then there were a few more clans that Naruto didn't know as well. Lastly there was the empty Sarutobi seat and then another seat that was empty, but he didn't recognize the symbol.

The hardest part of being Tsunade's fake ANBU was that he had to stay still. His energetic self just wanted to escape and go train or something. He would rather meditate than sit here and watch more of this pointless babble about children and land ownership. He nearly jumped for joy when Tsunade finally ended the meeting.

"Fox," she said, and it took a moment for Naruto to realize she was talking to him. "Make sure that Nara-sama makes it to my office immediately. I am going to prepare my office." Naruto was about to give his usual reply when he thought back to a couple hours ago.

"Yes Hokage-sama" He said as flatly as possible. It took every nerve in his body to not throw in an insult or two. He tried to act like an ANBU and come up to Shukaku Nara, who just sort of lazily stretched and started to walk towards the exit. Now seeing him clearly, there were obvious signs of hangover, and a large red welt on the side of his neck. His hair was much more scruffy than normal.

Naruto composed himself and came up to him. "Nara-sama." Oh he was really starting to hate this high pitched voice. "The Hokage has requested your presence immediately in her office."

He looked at Naruto with red bleary eyes. He didn't seem to recognize Naruto, for which he was grateful. "Mendokuse. What does she want?" He said, not moving yet.

Naruto wanted to groan. He decided to just stare. The ANBU he knew seemed to do that a lot. Hiding behind the mask, he was pretty sure that he could pull the silent act until Skukaku gave up. Unfortunately the older man just stared right back. Naruto was the first to give up, less than a minute later.

"It's about what she asked you last night!" He held his tongue to stop from saying the many obscenities that would probably follow. Again it sounded like he was whining.

The older Nara just shrugged and finally started walking towards the stairs. Naruto huffed, disgusted by this, even moreso that this man held the greatest possibility of answers. Walking up the stairs, Naruto felt that the older man was sizing him up. Hopefully it was just because Naruto was someone new rather than him recognizing him.

Tsunade had already ditched the Hokage coat and had settled back into her chair. As soon as Shukaku walked in she glared at his disheveled appearance. He gave a weak nod to her and sat down lazily in the proffered chair. Naruto sat by the entrance, something that was obviously noticed by the clan leader.

"Shukaku, did you find out about the man I asked about?" She asked.

He groaned. "I didn't look through the old archives for nothing. I found your man. He was apparently the first Uzumaki." Shukaku looked tired as he said this. His words showed that he had thought this out and his true intelligence was being brought to bear.

"So what was his name?"

Shukaku actually looked somewhat embarrassed. "It started with an R." He said simply.

"Tsunade growled. "And?"

Shukaku actually looked at the ceiling in discomfort. "And then I got distracted." He scratched at his neck, and his fingers scraped over the red mark. His face colored as he felt this. Naruto then realized that the mark on his neck was quite a large hickey. Shukaku sort of laughed. "Very distracted hokage-sama. Perhaps I can go and do some further research."

Tsunade looked at him with more than a little distaste. "Permission granted." She looked at Naruto. "Fox, you have my permission to stab Nara-san with as many kunai as you can before he reaches the front doors." Shukaku came out of his discomfort quite quickly at this.

Naruto gave him a stone cold glare and pulled out the few kunai he had with him. Skukaku Nara actually started running, using a shadow jutsu to hold off the kunai flying at him. Naruto didn't really try, for the reason that he would be bringing back answers. Though no one would fault him for a couple of cuts here and there. Once the older man had left the tower, Naruto returned to the office and pulled off his mask.

"Alright, baa-chan." He controlled his voice, hopefully not sounding so whiny this time. "Now tell me what is going on and how I can fix it." He did not like being stuck in a jutsu that he couldn't remove.

"Alright, Naruto." She shut the doors of the office and came over to him. "Lift up your shirt a bit so I can feel where this jutsu is being sustained from." Her hands glowed a greenish color, probably some sort of medical jutsu. Naruto lifted the shirt and felt her hand on his midsection. It was strange that this jutsu felt real enough to allow the feeling of her hand on his skin to get through. Most of the genjutsu he had experienced, especially his sexy no jutsu, didn't allow you to feel this way.

Tsunade seemed to glare at his stomach and Naruto felt a small bit of pain as her fingers dug into his skin. He didn't dare say anything. Med-nins had a habit of causing naruto harm to test his healing factor, and with Tsunade so close he was not going to risk pissing her off by distracting her.

About a minute later she moved her poking and prodding to his face. She silenced any kind of complaints with a glare. Finally she sat back in her chair, looking focused.

"Well, baa-chan?" He asked, feeling safer now. "What kind of jutsu am I stuck in?"

She sighed. "That's just it, Naruto. I don't think you are stuck in a jutsu. Though I have some theories on what happened, I have never seen anything like this before. Your body is completely natural. I can't find any signs of charkra infusion or forced jutsu. I can hardly see the fox, even. Whatever this change is, it also is more protective of your seal. What scares me the most is the presence of natural female chakra. You have tons of it. That shouldn't be possible for you, or any male. The only person I can compare that to is Sai, but that is only because he is the most emotionally confused person I have ever met. Though his chakra does not even compare to yours. Yours feels like you are a natural girl, as if you had grown up as one all of your life. That isn't natural and this greatly worries me."

Naruto was a little intimidated by this. "But when I do my sexy no jutsu this doesn't happen. I don't get red hair or anything like that."

Tsunade thought for a moment. "Well, see if you can perform that jutsu. That should be a good test to see what we are dealing with."

Naruto formed the handsigns and focused. "Sexy no jutsu!" With a puff of smoke he transformed into the blond girl he had imagined in his mind. Nothing seemed to be off with his chakra, so he cancelled the jutsu.

Tsunade was giving him a death glare. "You can imagine the genjutsu with clothes, you baka!" Naruto deftly avoided the punch. "So it is safe to assume that what has happened to you is not ninjutsu or genjutsu. I doubt it is a form of kenjutsu, so I am guessing it is relating to your bloodline." She pursed her lips. "Here is where I have no idea what we are dealing with. You might have some ability that allows you to transform into someone else, or something of that nature. Or, even less likely you might have some sort of cursed bloodline that is degrading your genetics in some way like some of the Sound ninja you have met. Or a thousand other possibilities."

She started mumbling something unintelligible. Then she started pacing. Then she tried her medical jutsu again. Then she punched Naruto into the wall for good measure. She might have repeated this but a knock came at the door.

"Hokage-hime, there are genin teams reporting for their missions. Are you available?" Shizune called through the door.

Tsunade growled. "Give me five minutes to finish up in here and then ill be right out." She turned to Naruto. "Fox," she said, eyeing the door, "for now we have to assume that your bloodline did this to you, though for what reason I don't know yet. You will deliver this to Hiashi Hyuuga as a response to his resolutions at our council meeting today, and then in three hours I want you to go and collect the vital information from Shukaku Nara. You may do so as liberally as possible." She turned to the door again, giving it a glare. "You will also acquire an amount of sake that is suitable for two people to get very drunk." She gave him a last smile. "It is your birthday after all."

Naruto smiled and put on the mask. He may look like a girl right now, but he was still very much Naruto Uzumaki. He took the proffered folder of documents that Tsunade had signed while they were in here, and got up to leave. No one gave him a second glance. To them, it was just an ANBU leaving the Hokage's office. Naruto loved this feeling. No one was noticing him. He felt like a real ninja. Well, he was a true ninja, but the feeling of being able to hide in plain sight was a rush. All of his life he had been instantly noticed, always obvious in any situation. He reveled in this, calmly and almost leisurely hopping across the rooftops, if you could call that leisurely.

He took his time and got to the Hyuuga complex within about twenty minutes. Before he got there he made sure to grab some food for lunch, since he had eaten no breakfast. Too bad he would have to wait until he could eat in privacy if he had to act like an ANBU. As he landed in front of the gates he could see the two branch family guards in front of the doors.

"ANBU-san, what business do you have with the Hyuuga clan?" They said flatly. Naruto was loving the fact that he was unnoticed, or rather not identified as himself. They would never let him in the front door like this.

"I am here with a message from Hokage-hime to Hyuuga Hiashi." Naruto said back just as flatly. The guards checked the seal on the message and let Naruto right in. He was lead to a small sitting room, near the front doors but not all the way inside the complex. It was nice. It was sparse, but was very inviting for a Hyuuga complex room. The branch family member stood at the door for a few seconds before giving a bow.

"Lord Hyuuga will come within the next ten minutes, ANBU-san."

Naruto nodded. Being the man, or rather the girl(right now at least) behind the mask, he could avoid the weird stares. Not only that, but being given the respect of the prideful Hyuuga just for having a mask on was great. In his younger years he may have considered this a great time for a prank, but now he just appreciated the moment of being someone else. Boy, would they get a kick out of this once he told them it was actually him.

Unfortunately for him some sort of diety decided that right now, his life was about to take a nasty turn. He felt his chakra rushing to his center again, just like last night. This time he decided that it would be a bad idea to try to stop it. When he had tried it just made things a lot more painful. Plus everyone in the Hyuuga complex would come running at the surge in chakra, and Naruto had no desire to be slaughtered by angry byukagan users. So, he just let the chakra build up to that critical point again.

This time, it didn't hurt. Whatever this was, it was very uncomfortable, but the chakra building up seemed to shield him from the pain. His bones were stretching and building up, and he could feel the long red hair shrinking back into his skull. As this happened, he felt his normal muscle mass return, and his male body started to come back. As this happened, he felt his clothes become more uncomfortable. Then his height started coming back, and his shoes and pants had some difficulty keeping their form. The shoes gave in, breaking. Naruto didn't dare try to stop this. He was turning back into himself, and all he focused on was letting it happen without interference from either himself or the Kyuubi. He still didn't know if the demon knew what this was about.

Finally, he opened his eyes upon his old body. The whole process must have taken a little under a minute, and felt unlike anything Naruto had ever experienced. It didn't feel like a jutsu or anything, more like a natural occurrence. It simply was completely out of control. Taking a deep breath, he now wondered what his options were. He was inside the Hyuuga compound, and now someone was going to find out about this…whatever it was. Naruto could smell something, almost a hint of lilacs in the air. Ignoring it, he tried to think of what he was going to explain to Hiashi.

Unknown to Naruto, right around the corner was Hinata. She desperately hoped that Naruto had not sensed her presence. She had seen the whole transformation, thanks to her byukagan. She saw the redheaded ANBU transform into Naruto, and saw his reaction. She also had a heavy blush on her face, due to the very damaged state of Naruto's clothing. The Byukagan had some amazing benefits, and this was one of them that Hinata would never tell Naruto about. She would most likely die of embarassment before that happened.

Still, this was alarming. She had never seen Naruto do anything like this. Was he an imposter? Looking again, she saw him squeezing his hands together in worry, mouth mumbling something about how he was going to explain this. An imposter probably would try to play this off, and Hinata felt that the likelihood was that this was Naruto. Smiling, she felt her heart warm when she realised she could do something for him. Rushing to a nearby room, she grabbed a set of plain robes and carried them to the sitting room. She tried to muster her courage and enter the room, but could hardly do so. Rather than just run away like her anxiety told her to, she tossed the robes around the door and then followed her anxiety. Her father passed by her as she rushed away, a smirk on his face as he saw her blush.

Naruto, on the other hand, was grateful to whoever just threw him the robes. He put them on lightning fast over his destroyed clothes, and he tried to go thank whoever did that. By the time he had stuck his head outside the door, it was too late. They were gone. But their scent remained, the smell of lilacs. It was the same as what he smelled right after he changed back. That meant that someone saw his change. He felt more than a little threatened by this, as someone knew about his bloodline ability, that is if this form shifting was that and not some horrible ninja killing curse he had picked up earlier. Still, that meant that someone knew. This didn't bode well.

Settling back onto the sitting room's couch, he had just enough time to realise he still had no explanation when Hiashi came through the door. His raised eyebrow was enough to worry Naruto. When his eyes travelled to the ANBU mask next to him on the couch, the other eyebrow also raised up. One was bad, but two was downright nightmarish. Naruto had pranked Hiashi only once. At that time Hiashi had only raised one eyebrow and had gotten back at Naruto. He had the runs for two weeks straight after what Hiashi did last time. Now he had both eyebrows raised at him.

"Uzumaki-san. To what authority shall I report you to for being an ANBU imposter? Is this your idea of a prank?" He said carefully, his voice hardly hiding his displeasure.

"Hyuuga-sama," Naruto forced out, trying to be respectful, "This is my first day as an ANBU, and Tsunade is asking me to do some pretty weird stuff." He really hoped that Hiashi wouldn't ask what that was, since Naruto couldn't really define anything he himself didn't understand. Hiashi seemed to be waiting for him to continue. Well, he wasn't dead yet. "She wanted me to deliver this message to you in response to this morning's meeting."

Hiashi opened the sealed scroll and looked over the contents with a careful eye. Looking back up at Naruto, the eyebrows had receded back into their normal state, which in the presence of Naruto meant he was tolerated. Or at least that was what he was guessing.

"So you were the ANBU at the meeting today." He said slowly. "That must have been a very advanced henge to get past the door gaurds and the clan heads."

Naruto felt his stomach nearly drop out of him. Hiashi didn't like it, he could tell. Well, he wouldn't like an ability that was powerful enough to get through the byukagan if he was in Hiashi's shoes as well. He could agree with him logically, but in reality he was not having an enjoyable time.

"It's a new one I made." Naruto said with as much composure as he could summon. It wasn't much. Hiashi seemed to accept it after a moment though.

"I have heard rumors that you have a henge that could overpower the hokage, so this is not very surprising." Hiashi said cooly. He seemed to be considering something, and then came to a consensus. "I am guessing that the Hokage has you using this technique for some reason?" He sat down across from him. "Were you commanded to release it in fron of me?"

Naruto was sweating underneath the robe. This was not a good line of questioning, and no matter what he did Tsunade would hurt him. "Well, it is still experimental." Naruto admitted. "I did not know how long it was going to last. I invented the technique last night, and baa-ch…Tsunade wanted me to0 use it today." Naruto caught himself.

"So I can safely assume that she has more things for you to accomplish before the end of the day?" Naruto nodded. "Well, then you should reactivate your technique and carry on with your day. I am sure that you have other people to give greif to."

Naruto didn't like this. He had no idea how to reactivate whatever it was that had just happened, nor did he want to. It was not a very pleasant process, by any means, and he didn't know the first place to start. "Umm, Hyuuga-san, I can only do that technique with a certain seal," Naruto hoped he would believe that, "And I cant make it here. Can you get me out of here another way?" He would do anything to keep his promise, even if it meant that he had to have some respect for this man.

Hiashi raised the eyebrow again.

"It is still something I cant do with handsigns!" Naruto grumbled, hoping Hiashi would just trust him. He probably already knew with those eyes of his that Naruto was lying about this.

Finally the man shrugged. "Alright, come with me and hide your mask. I am sure that the Hokage does not want her ANBU to be associated with you." Naruto chose to ignore the jab and follow. Hiashi lead him with his Byukagan active, coming towards a small extension of the complex. He did some quick movements to avoid some of the other Hyuuga, which Naruto followed as best he could. It was a little amazing to see the clan leader moving so quietly in the formal robes he wore. One day he wanted to learn that. He was having serious trouble with his robes making noise.

Hiashi stopped at a small window at the edge of a courtyard, his eyes searching out along the walls of the complex. He seemed to go over the area one more time before turning to Naruto. "Wait four minutes, and then jump over the wall. The way should be clear for you. You may tell the Hokage that I approve of her changes and that I look forward to more of her innovations soon." He paused. "I especially approve of placing one of our most unlikely ninjas in the ANBU. Our enemies will never expect this. You may keep those robes, as well. They suit you." With that, the clan leader left Naruto to his escape. As he looked in the courtyard, he saw someone coming through one of the far entrances. It was Hinata.

She was looking haggard and emotional, and quite pretty. Naruto didn't really want to give up his secrecy, but then again this was Hinata. The shy girl probably wouldn't tell anyone if she saw him leaving. He moved towards her, remembering how much time he had left before Hiashi said he could leave.

As Hiashi walked away, he noticed that Naruto had indeed fallen into his trap and had noticed Hinata. 'You sly old devil,' he thought to himself, 'You'll have them together soon enough.' The branch family members in his path found it odd that Hiashi Hyuuga had a mischivious smirk on his face as he continued back into the main compound. Oh well. Let them have their secret thoughts about him. He would still play matchmaker whether or not they knew anything.

Naruto on the other hand had no idea that Hiashi had planned this, and he just walked up as he usually would to a friend. "Hey Hinata!" He said, keeping his voice a little quieter than normal. "How are you?"

She nearly squeaked, but that seemed to be normal for her. "F-fine, Naruto-kun" she seemed to take interest in his robes rather than look at his face. "Why are you here?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Well, your dad told me to escape from here. He said I could make it out of here without anybody seeing me. Promise you wont say anything?"

She nodded. "C-can you do something f-for me then?"

Naruto could see her face could not have turned any more red than a tomato. Jeez that girl needed to eat some more healthy food if she was getting sick like this. Whenever she was around him he had always seen her like this. That was it! He could show her what real food was like! "Hinata! Howabout I take you to dinner tonight! We can get you some real food!"

He assumed she had stuttered a yes before nearly passing out. He shrugged this off. Her fainting spells happened a lot around him too. "Um, I can come get you around seven. Is that ok?" He said, standing her back up. She gave the slightest of nods, and then Naruto realised that his four minutes had come to an end. "Um, I gotta go, but ill be at the restaurant down the street at seven!" He said, leaping over the wall. Hinata just chose to sit down and thank whatever diety decided to do that for her.

Just inside of Byukagan range, Hiashi smirked. Then he reached into his robes and pulled out a very small victory fan, small enough that the other family members might not see him waving it like a lunatic. Unfortunately Hanabi chose to interrupt him.

"Father, what is that for?" Hanabi asked.

Hiashi composed himself as best he could, but even his best efforts could not get rid of his smirk. "I just avoided a mid-life crisis, Hanabi. It merits some form of celebration." At the edge of his sight range, he felt Naruto jump the wall and Hinata appear to start praying to something. Well, as long as he could get his girls married off at some point he would avoid a mid life crisis. If scaring their potential love interests happened to be a side effect, then all was well.

Naruto found Shukaku Nara sleeping. He didn't hit him or poke him awake, though. Right next to him, folded around what appeared to be a cheap wrapping paper, were a number of scrolls labeled for the Hokage. At least three were inside, and Naruot nearly jumped in glee. Maybe this would have the answer. If not, he would still learn about his grandfather. He took the bag and returned to the Hokage tower, this time dressed in clothes he had gotten from his apartment. Wearing a Hyuuga robe was generally not a good idea if he wanted to conceal where he was the morning.

He had to wait in the office for a while, though. A few dignitaries had come to see the Hokage, so he had to wait until they all finished. By that time it was around five in the afternoon, and he was itching to get some answers. The office doors opened and deposited a few heavily robed figures, all from the Daimyo's palace. You could see the symbol emblazoned on nearly everything they wore.

"Gaki! Get in here." Tsunade was positively confused by his form. "How did you change back?" She asked once the doors closed behind him.

"It just sorta happened, Baa-chan." Naruot said, sitting down and placing his bag of scrolls from Shukaku on her table. "I was in the Hyuuga complex when I just sorta changed back."

Tsunade sat down after doing a short medical examination. "Your chakra feels masculine again, Naruto. I don't know anything about all of this, but it feels like a completely opposite from this morning." She glared at the bag. "Lazy idiot. He could have done that last night. Alright, Naruto, start at the beginning and tell me how the change occurred. Leave out nothing."

Naruto focused back on the experience. "My chakra just started building up on its own, just like last time. This time I didn't fight it, since if I did every Hyuuga in that complex would have sensed it and sorta killed me. Last time when I tried to stop it I just hurt myself. This time I didn't fight it, and I could feel the chakra fueling the change. I also didn't pass out. It took about a full minute to finish, and the only weird part is when your insides twist up and the change."

Tsunade sat in thought until he mentioned the last bit. "Your internal organs changed? Where was the most uncomfortable change in terms of organs?"

Naruto thought to himself. "The stomach was the worst, but I don't know why." He settled into his chair. "The hair I think was the wierdest though. It felt like it was all getting sucked into a vacuum."

Tsunade sighed and opened the scrolls. One was just a reference scroll from a couple generations back, sort of like an out of date bingo book. It was on a page listed for the Waterfall village, and it mentioned a couple of things. "The second leader of Waterfall village, Uzumaki R., is known to be an honorable fighter who will never kill if he can avoid it. This tactic has left him with many rivals and many friends, and his reluctance to kill also carries problems within his village." Tsunade read, skimming the rest of the document for anything further. There was nothing.

The next scroll was better. It was a record of the actual Bingo book of the time. "Uzumaki two-face. Leader of the Waterfall village, Kage-level chakra and taijutsu. Engage only if you have a taijutsu specialist of equal rank, and if impossible to do then retreat. He will allow enemy nins to retreat, but never backs down from a fight. His defeats can be numbered on a single hand. Wind element talents, along with some water element techniques. Has black hair and blue eyes, and supposedly has a second face. His reluctancy to kill is voided in keeping this secret. Anyone who does know of his second face has not yet survived long enough to report it. Two children and Jonin-level wife. Recommended that you face Uzumaki on open ground, has been known to have the nickname of 'trickster-god' on the battlefield. Engage only when necessary."

Naruto really liked that. His great-grandfather sounded like one nasty dude. Hearing about him, he thought back to his elemental specialty. Wind. Just like him, he thought with a smile.

Tsunade gave a loud exuberant shout as she looked at the last scroll. "Naruto, I've got his name!" highlighted by her hand was a single name on some sort of old roster. It clearly read Ranma Uzumaki.

His great-grandfather was named Ranma. Wild Horse. Naruto liked him even more now. He had awesome abilities and he had a cool name. "Wait, that didn't tell us anything about his bloodline! How are we supposed to learn anything now?"

Whatever his bloodline was, it chose at that time to act up. He could feel the chakra rushing to his center, like last time. "Baa-chan, its happening again!" He groaned as the change started happening, starting at his head and moving out into the rest of his body. His muscle mass shrunk and almost melted away, corrosponding to the red hair that came tumbling out of his head. His body shrunk, his feet leaving the floor as he lost height and weight. He felt Tsunade put her hands on him at this point, but the feeling of his body changing didn't stop. His organs then did their twisting, bringing out another groan of discomfort. He didn't dare try to stop it, as the pain from having all of these changes would stay shielded from his mind if he just left it alone. His bones shrank, and he could feel his skin readjust to himself. It was over in the same amount of time, just under a minute.

Naruto just leaned back into the chair and took deep breaths. Tsunade still had her hands on him, hands glowing green from the medical jutsu she was using. She held Naruto down for another couple of minutes, and then let him sit in peace.

"Gaki." She said, "That was way more informative than a bunch of scrolls. Your chackra shifted its polarity completely. It went from male to completely female in the space of a couple minutes, and it was all fueled by your chakra. Naruto, the reason we can't figure it out is because it is actually something your body is naturally doing. Naruto, I think that this is for sure your bloodline." She reached under the desk and pulled out a container of sake and started pouring both of them glasses. "Now we have figured it out and can drink on it. Case solved." Naruto missed her smirk behind her glass.

"Stupid baa-chan! I'm still stuck as a girl and I don't know how to stop this!"

Tsunade leered over her desk. "Do you want my help or not, Gaki?"

Naruto shrank back into the chair, which was much easier since he had shrunk. All of his lost body mass felt like it was attached to his head. "yeah I do. Now how do I stop this!"

"You can't." Tsunade replied simply. "I have no idea what it is, but it seems to be natural enough that it will keep happening." She ignored Naruto's whine of anguish. "I can tell you that you will turn back into yourself soon enough, though." She laughed a little at this. Naruto huffed, a serious pout on his face. It might have looked intimidating on his male form's face, but as a girl it just invited Tsunade to do the grandma squeeze on his cheeks again. "You're so cute when you complain. Now drink!" She slammed a full glass in front of Naruto.

Naruto did. As a girl his tastebuds were different. It was as if they were more sensitive, which made the bitter sake even more bitter. He coughed a couple of times before he finished it, but it finally settled in his seemingly smaller stomach. "I need you to change me back."

Tsunade laughed, slamming what must have been her fourth cup down. "Gaki, today I just saw something that defied every law of medical science and you are asking me to just fix it." Fifth cup. "You are asking something impossible. Not only did that take your own personal chakra to do, which by the way didn't respond at all to the chakra I used on you, but the change was on a level of detail that I couldn't even keep track of. You are asking me to change everything about you, when even with all my experience I hardly would know where to start with. Naruto, you are asking the impossible. The only thing we can do about it is drink and pray."

"Pray for what, baa-baa?"

"That someone else knows more than we do." Cups six and seven disappeared. Naruto looked up to the clock. "Baa-chan! Please, I have to go see Hinata-chan tonight and she doesn't know that I'm like this! I only have a half hour!" Tsunade just laughed at him.

"You have the same amount of information as I do, Gaki." Eight cups down now. "Figure it out yourself."

Naruto groaned. "Maybe I can just cut my hair and dye it or something. She can see through any of my henge no jutsu, so I cant just hide behind that. Baa-chan., do you have any hair dye?"

She laughed and decided to start drinking directly from the bottle. "That is foolish gaki." She said, red in her cheeks. "Your body mass was just transferred by your changes." She held up a lock of his red hair. "If you want to keep your muscle mass or lungs or something else that might change back into then you won't be cutting that hair."

Naruto did not want to lose any of his body mass, especially when he didn't know what the hair would corrospond to. He might become a enuch if it was cut, a prospect he hopefully would never investigate. "Then what do I do? I told Hinata I would be there, and now I can't even keep that promise!" The whining voice had come back with a vengeance. He hated that part of being a girl.

"Why don't you just go and tell her about all of this yourself! You seem to be loud enough to do that, and it will be more useful then bugging me!" Tsunade had become very drunk now. She rather forcefully threw Naruto out of the window. Naruto screeched as he fell the four floors and landed on someone's roof, red hair falling around his face like a cloak. Groaning, Naruto stood up and looked back at the Hokage tower to glare at Tsunade, but she had already left the window, most likely to go back to her bottle.

Seeing the clock, Naruto realized he had no time to waste. He had to get back to the Hyuuga area of town before Hinata got to the restaurant. Roof hopping, he was reminded that his other form, short and redheaded, had shorter reach. This lead to a few close calls and almost too short roof hops, but he made it to the restaurant just a couple minutes late.

Hinata was at the bar stool area, looking around anxiously. Naruto ducked under the door, hiding behind different people until he was behind Hinata. He really didn't like these conditions. She was not using her byukagan, but there was no garuntee that she wouldn't resort to it. At least in his current form she couldn't sense him, as he was someone completely different. Naruto did not like the looks he was receiving from the male population, as his previous experience in this form was as an ANBU, where he was mostly unnoticed.

Naruto did not like the way that some of the men were ogling his new body, and there was only one direction he could go, towards Hinata. This begged the question: what would he say to her? She most likely thought a male Naruto was coming to eat dinner with her, and performing a henge in here would be impossible. It was a ninja village after all. Everyone would realize who he was, and he had no desire to be seen as a girl.

The area around her was empty, courtesy of her familial status. The seat next to her was obviously taken, waiting for him to fill it. Naruto groaned as he was forced to make a decision. Maybe he could just come up and act like he was sent by Naruto, but then he would look stupid. No, he had to do something. Hinata was looking more agitated by the second. She might just use her Byukagan anyways and see that he was here. Well, he still had no real idea what kind of technique he was suffering from, but he had no desire to be found.

Still, he had to tell her something. It would be bad if he just left one of his friends hanging, especially when he was the one who set the time. Sighing, Naruto decided that he might as well just go over and talk to her. As he walked, he realized he had nothing to say. All too soon he was in the chair beside Hinata, still with nothing to say. As he looked up, he saw Hinata giving him one of her smiles.

But there was no way that she could see through his stupid bloodline ability. Was there? Her Byukagan eyes weren't active, so there was no way that she could see through his technique, was there? He certainly hoped so. He tried to smile, but it didn't feel real.

"Umm," Naruto started, and then took a few more moments but still came up with nothing to say. "I was sent here to give you a message." He blurted out.

Hinata just looked directly at him with complete focus. It was slightly unnerving. There was a hint of red on her cheeks now, for some reason. "What is the message?" She asked hesitantly, hands clenched. Man, she was really worried about this.

"Naruto wanted to say that the, uh, Hokage wanted him to do a special mission, and, uh, he couldn't make it…" Naruto really hoped that someone, anyone within earshot would just forget what he just said. He felt like the most stupid person on the planet. Hinata on the other hand just started at him quietly for a moment.

"Can I give you my answer outside?" She said hesitantly. "I don't feel comfortable saying it here." The last was a whisper that Naruto barely heard. Naruto shrugged. He had no desire to be seen like this with Hinata. Bad enough for him, but for a Hyuuga he had no idea how they would take it.

Naruto let himself be lead outside to an alleyway, where Hinata started to pace around the small area. Naruto didn't want to say much of anything, fearing that she might just go off on him. Girls as Naruto knew them were unpredicatable and dangerous, prone to random acts of senseless destruction that had a high possibility of him being the main target. Of course, this was his fault for knowing so many medic-nin.

Finally Hinata came over close to Naruto. She was even redder in the face. Then she hugged him before he could do anything to defend himself. She smelled like lilacs. Like he would try to defend himself from Hinata, he surmised. He never really tried to dodge Sakura either. "I saw you change today, Naruto. I know it is you and I want you to know that I will help you when I can."

Naruto was stunned. She knew? How could she know? Then it came to him, the smell of lilacs right after he had changed in the Hyuuga complex. She must have seen the whole thing. Before he could ask, she pulled away and started running away. Naruto could feel his cheeks heat up, and finally something clicked. She must have known with her eyes, since she had a bloodline ability as well. He reminded himself to make sure to talk to her about this, maybe for some help. Tsunade wouldn't mind that, he thought. She already knew, so what was the point of hiding that?

"Hinata," But Naruto saw that she had already ran off, straight to the Hyuuga complex, he hoped because of her shyness. She had just told him that she would be there to help him, so that meant she didn't run away in fear or anything. "Thanks." He started walking back to his own apartment, a lot on his mind. He walked slowly, thoughts on the forefront and not noticing the man on the rooftop observing him.

Everyone in the Hyuuga complex would wonder why Hiashi came back from his spontaneous late night errand holding a victory fan. Of course, the custom was to not disturb the clan leader on topics that were sensitive. This topic was rather sensitive, and no one dared to ask. Hinata herself spent the rest of her night with a large blush on her face and hiding in the least populated wings of the complex. Of course, Hiashi could see that she was pacing around the area, thanks to his Byukagan, and her smile never left her face. Hiashi just waved his victory fan around a few more times for good measure.

Naruto got back to his apartment and found the present he had tossed back into his apartment this morning. Now he had time to investigate his birthday present. It had a small card on top and was wrapped in white paper. It was simple and elegant in its design, a soft flower petal on the paper. He gently picked it up, finding it light weight, and set it down on his table.

Someone had put a lot of effort into this, judging by the perfectly folded seams. He carefully removed each piece of tape, savoring his first real present in almost three years. With a bit of relish he removed the paper without breaking a single inch. It paid to be a highly trained ninja sometimes. Finally he pulled out a simple white box, two feet long and six inches deep. There was a note gently taped to the top of it, perfectly lined up with the corners. 'From Hinata to Naruto' was written in flowing kanji, in a very fine script.

Naruto smiled even more. She had promised to help him with this aggravating bloodline ability, and she had given him a birthday present. He took a moment to think about it, but then noticed that his eyes were tearing up. He had to pull back from the table to keep from getting tears on Hinata's present, and once that was done he tried to stop crying. This didn't really work all that well, weird feelings and emotions conflicting in his body. For a moment he even started shaking as if he was afraid, but he didn't feel any source of fear.

"Why am I crying?" He tried to just close his eyes and make it go away, but his emotions rose. It wracked his body, causing more of the small convulsions as his tear ducts emptied themselves. "What is this?" he yelled, more to himself than anyone else. His voice came out sort of strangled. Finally he just gave in and let the emotions run through him, figuring that this must be some sort of bloodline problem.

When it was finally done Naruto came back to the table. He felt weak, like he needed to be somewhere safer than this. It was disgusting to him, but he just pinned it on this bloodline. He finally got to open the present, which was still on the table. Inside there were layers and layers of small oragami persons, each painted different colors. In fact, each one was painted to look like someone he knew. Picking up each one, he could see Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi, and everyone else. She had even included those who had already passed on, as he picked up and examined the oragami person for the third hokage. None of them had faces, but each had other things that made them individual and distinctive.

Finally he found the one of himself, which was right in the middle. Orange dominated it, and it was the only one that had a face. It was a simple smile, with three whisker marks on each side. This must have taken many hours of study and practise, even to do one of these characters. With care he placed each of them back in their box, each standing in groups based on team and how much Naruto cared about them. The original configuration was very close to this. Then he saw that there was one missing. He searched through all of them again, but could not find the personage for Hinata herself. Why did she spend so much time on everyone else's and not do herself? This seemed wrong to him somehow.

Carefully he took the small box to his room and placed it on his shelf near his bed. The paper that came with it he folded and placed into a cupboard, as something nice hecould use later. Naruto felt much shorter now, hardly able to reach his ramen shelf, having to jump to grab the right flavor to eat. He had to do something about this red hair, too. It was really becoming a pain. He would have to ask Tsunade… or perhaps Hinata about it later.

Naruto spent the rest of his birthday eating ramen and staring at his only birthday present, finally smiling and rolling over to sleep. For some reason he hadnt changed back yet, but hopefully that would happen during the night. He realised another benefit of being small as he curled up in bed, and this was that he could finally fit on his bed in his apartment. His male form never fit, and so he took the time to lay out fully on the small bed.

Hopefully tomorrow he could find out more about this, maybe even ask Hinata what she saw. With these thoughts he drifted to sleep facing his gift, a smile matching his small oragami personage on his face.

He knew that there was a problem when he woke up and he was still a girl. Climbing out of bed, Naruto decided that he needed some supplies. He was almost out of food, and it might be a good idea to get a set of pants or something for his girl form. All of his other clothes really didn't help very much for this. So he got around to eating what was left in his cupboards, and then left his apartment under a henge no jutsu. Tsunade had told him to keep this whole bloodline ability a secret, so he waited until he was in an alleyway a mile or so away from his house before dropping the jutsu.

He realized something else as he began shopping. The store owners seemed to drop the prices for him, especially if he smiled. This came in great handy when he bought his cases of ramen, as the discounted price really helped him save. Oh well, he had no idea why people were being this nice to him. He just would smile and keep going. As he kept moving through the storefronts, he caught sight of some of his friends.

Kiba and Shino were walking along, with Kiba's large dog Akamaru, and behind them was their old jounin sensei and Hinata, who appeared to be talking quietly. They must have been on some sort of short mission, judging by the light armament and the signs of effort on Kiba's part. Naruto was about to go and say hello, but then remembered that they wouldn't know his face. So he just sat back and waited for them to pass. Fortunately, Hinata saw him and broke off to come to talk with him, under the cover of inspecting the store that Naruto had ducked into. She came up to the same part of the aisle and spoke very quietly.

"N-Naruto-kun," she said, looking at her hands, which she had clenched together in what seemed to be agitation. "Good morning."

"Hinata, I wanted to thank you for that present! It was amazing!" She blushed in what he hoped was in response to his praise. "But why didn't you make one for yourself?"

She continued to seem agitated. "I couldn't decide on how I should look, and I ran out of time." She stuttered. "I finished yours last, instead of mine." This was said quietly, but with a lot of positive emotion.

Naruto smiled. "I really liked it." Then he scratched the back of his head in more than a little discomfort as he tried to find out how to ask his next question. Her agitation seemed to rush this. "Um, can you help me out with something?"

"S-sure," she said very quickly, with a big smile.

"I need help finding stuff for this form. Um, well, none of my clothes fit when I'm like this." Naruto said with as much agitation and discomfort as Hinata had experienced earlier. He didn't really enjoy having to ask questions about himself when he was like this. In fact, he had skipped showering this morning because of how uncomfortable it was to be in this form.

Hinata nodded and pointed to another store. "I like this one. We can find you some clothes there." She gave him a strange look. "Maybe something for your hair as well."

Naruto gave her a confused look. "What about my hair?" The loose red just sort of hung and stuck all over the place.

Hinata smiled again, almost as if this was a joke. "Having long hair is like having a good weapon." She said rather quietly. "You have to take care of it. We can find you something to keep it out of your face as well." Naruto looked at Hinata's hair. It was long and very dark colored, but more importantly it looked perfectly straight. It was combed and had small braids right on the side of her face, which appeared to keep the hair from getting into her eyes. He had never really looked at Hinata this way before, and he found it very pleasing to him, though it wasn't the same as when he looked at her when he was in his male self. There was a sense of almost enviousness of her hair. But Naruto didn't really think that way, I mean he was a guy. Hinata's hair looking better than his didn't really matter to him, right?

Hinata answered this question by pulling Naruto's hair out of his eyes and tying it back behind his head. Naruto felt a little better about this, right up until he felt his chakra start spiking. It was the change, and it was happening again. He groaned. "Hinata I have to get out of here, its happening again!"

He knew he had only seconds. With Hinata's help he made it to a changing room. Not long after that the changes hit him, the bones shifting, the hair shrinking, and the major discomfort of his organs twisting around. The last was his voice and throat changing back, at which he groaned again in pain. All through the process Hinata was holding him up, keeping him from falling over and being seen by other people in the changing rooms.

She was watching him with her Byukagan, breathless as she observed the technique. Naruto waited until it was all over before he took a deep breath to recover. He looked over to Hinata, expecting intrigue or outrage or some sort of reaction to his transformation, but she just stood there calmly, a small smile on her face as she simply waited for him. This was surprising to him. She must really have seen him transform the last time if she was not at all shocked to see something like that.

"A-are you alright now, Naruto-kun?" she asked him, letting him go and standing a bit further from him.

"Y-yeah," He replied, voice a little shaky from the transition. "So, do you think I am some sort of perverted person now?" He asked, feeling very embarrassed about this.

"N-no, I would never!" She said shaking her head, and surprisingly not stuttering. "I actually found it interesting."

"Really?" he said, almost too loudly.

"Did I just hear Naruto?" Someone asked in the changing rooms, sounding oddly a lot like Shizune. He turned bright red in discomfort, knowing that he was in the women's changing rooms. If she caught him in here, he would never hear the end of it from Tsunade.

"Help me Hinata!" He whispered. "I have to get outa here or I'm going to die! She hits like Tsunade!"

Hinata got rid of her blush and started to focus. "Can you henge into a weapon or something like that? Maybe I can sneak you out that way." She sounded like Neji as she dictated this, calculating and effective.

Naruto nodded and made the hand signs to henge no jutsu, using as little chakra as he could. He changed into the large star-shaped kunai that he and Sasuke had used to defeat Zabusa the first time. This Hinata smiled at and put the 'weapon' on her back, quickly moving to escape this place. Shizune was in face there, and seemed to be on the lookout for him. He was very happy when Hinata made it out the doors to the shop, and headed for a suitable place for them to change him back. She moved quickly, not inciting any attention as a true shinobi should, but at the same time she moved almost as if she was the most confident person in the world.

Unfortunately, she ran into someone on the way. Naruto could feel her freeze up as she was addressed. "Hinata, are you finished with your mission already?

He could feel her shaking. It was probably fear. He was shaking right along with her. He could hear Hiashi. The one single person he probably feared most was here, and he was in a very precarious position on her back. If Hiashi saw that Naruto would be fish paste in the dirt before he knew it.

"Y-yes, father." He heard Hinata saw. "I am just on my way to deliver something before I come home for training."

"Ah, then I shall plan accordingly. You have too much to learn wasting time out here. Finish quickly and I will meet you at the usual training field." Hiashi said, rather cordially. Hopefully he wouldn't use his eye technique, if he did Naruto would be in the open and very vulnerable. Worst of all, Shizune was behind them too, and if he changed out of the henge in front of her, she would know for sure that he had been in the girl's changing rooms. Either way, Naruto felt very uncomfortable right now.

Thankfully Hiashi had no more to say, Hinata turned to go another way, giving Naruto a good view of Hiashi as he walked away. He wasn't facing him, but he still felt like the older clan leader was watching him. Hiahsi also seemed to be carrying a rather large victory fan, for what reason Naruto would never know.

Thankfully Naruto couldn't read minds, because if he could read Hiashi's mind, he would see a party going on inside. His steps towards preventing his mid-life crisis were very successful. The boy thought a simple henge wouldn't be noticed by him, did he? Well, Naruto had been in view to the clan leader the whole time. Perhaps that meant that his daughter was finally getting somewhere. All great things in his book, since the next clan leader of the Hyuuga had to be married before they could assume that status. His retirement was coming closer and closer, and as long as he kept the boy on his toes and near his little girl, then he felt that it would be successful. With a slight grin he carried his new victory fan back to the complex, where he could wave it with relish out of the view of everyone else.

Naruto and Hinata had found a nice empty spot of the marketplace for him to change back, both noticeably uncomfortable from the visit of Hinata's father. As he got back to his normal self, he gave Hinata a light hug.

"You are awesome, Hinata. Maybe later I will go and find something that fits me, whenever I change back. Thank you for everything." This time, he was the one to run away in embarrassment. Hinata couldn't hide her smile that day, even when her father started her into their heavy training regimen. It was strangely odd that he never commented on it, and that she never bothered to comment about the large victory fan he seemed to be forming a new habit of carrying around.

Naruto spent the rest of his day in training, trying to make up for the time he had spent figuring out, or at least trying to figure out, his bloodline. It seemed to have no effect on his ability to fight, no signs of anything being off in his chakra. If anything, the only sign was the change in how much effort it was taking to contain the fox. It seemed like he was having an easier time keeping his mind clear of its influence. Whether that was something the Kyuubi was doing behind his back or just a side effect of all this, he didn't know.

He had seen no problems with this, until near the end of the day he changed back to his female form again. He had absolutely no control over it. Even the least bit of chakra he put in to the effort brought pain. It would evidently slow down the flow of chakra from whatever this transformation technique was, which only made the pain of the experience go up. From what he could tell most of the chakra involved in the transformation technique was acting as a buffer between his mind and body as it went through a painful transformation. He still wasn't sure how this transformation technique worked, or how much chakra was required to either maintain it or trigger it.

Still, as it happened again he felt different. He had nearly exhausted himself in his training, but that was in his male form. Now having switched over he almost felt as if he was fully rested again. He grinned, forming a basic hand seal to see how his chakra levels were doing. They were full! Not even showing the signs of drain from training, and even the bruises and cuts had faded away. His nerves were pretty fried from the transformation, so he had no idea if he was still sore.

Stretching his arms, he felt like they were not sore in the slightest. That felt wrong to him, he had just done hours of exercise, and they weren't even tired at all. Doing the same with his legs, they didn't even feel like he had just run a few miles. He flared his chakra, and yet he felt no drain upon it. It didn't feel weaker, nor as if he had just spent hours working with it. Feeling it and flexing his energy, he felt it rise easily to him.

This was too weird. Chakra didn't just come from out of no where, it had one common source. How was it that he had another source of chakra? He had his own chakra source, and then the Kyuubi's chakra, and now it seemed that he had a third one. This one was just a mystery to him, since it felt exactly the same as his normal chakra. In fact, Naruto tried to access his normal chakra and found that he could not. For some reason every time he tried he seemed to be grasping this other chakra.

He needed to ask someone about this. The chakra issue was bugging him, as was the whole turning into the same girl every time he transformed. In his investigations of this new form of his, he had seen that it was very much a female body, and he disliked most of what came with it. Getting hit on by random guys had not been fun, and so he had taken to wearing the ANBU mask around town. Tsunade had cleared him to use it as much as he wanted, with the agreement that he carry messages with him to different people that needed to be contacted.

As he started to leave the training ground, he felt another presence around him. It was not malevolent, or anything dangerous, but it was following him. His long red hair was acting like a shroud, since he had just transformed, and was blocking his view of most of the surrounding area. So all he had to go on was his gut feeling that someone was watching him.

Sai had just made the find of a lifetime. His study of emotions had lead him to some crazy scrolls in the library, some detailing stupid ideas to get attention. None of the books could explain the one emotion that confused him the most, however. The books that confused him the most of all were these icha icha novels. He had read a few, but couldn't seem to understand what they were talking about. Finally, though, hidden in the very back of the library and stuffed so far into the shelves he had to carve with his knife to get it out, he had found this scroll. It was filled with pure understanding, a guide to declaring ones love for another.

He could hardly believe his luck as he was coming back from a short training trip to see the girl of his dreams. She had long red hair like a halo around her, falling just past her waist. It was well taken care of, straight and mesmerizing even to one so emotionally dulled as himself. She had an hourglass figure, one that showed even in her baggy ninja gear. Sai also noticed that she had the look of someone who just spent all day training, and yet appeared as if it had not affected her at all. He really hoped that was real and not some genjutsu, as that would be wonderful to anyone dating this girl.

Sai really liked this girl already. Now, it was time to act on it, at least that was what the scroll was telling him. Reading it again, it detailed the words you were to say in order to invite the girl on a date. 'Women, especially ninja, are especial creatures, and must be shown the most chivalrous side of thine heart. Speak this line exactly, and you will earn her respect and win her heart!' the scroll read. Sai memorized the next line, and then jumped down right in front of the girl. She took a defensive stance, just as any ninja would, but loosened slightly at the sight of him.

Sai did a deep bow, as the scroll dictated, and then spoke to the awestruck(he ignored the chakra glowing in one of her hands threateningly, as she obviously would be in love with him in moments) girl. "Fair red-haired goddess! I in my greatness and prowess have chosen thee, to be my deepest love! Fair beauty, I allow you in your majesty to date one so powerful as myself! Will right now be appropriate?" He felt some sort of emotion as he said this, but he quickly quieted it down so he could focus on her reply. The scroll was explicit about this.

The girl turned pale. She had blue eyes of the richest shade, and her mouth seemed to be quivering in either fear or anticipation. Her reply was not what the scroll dictated, however.

"I thought we burned every last one of those damned scrolls! We went through all of Kumo and Konoha and burned every last one! How did one make it through, its just not possible!" She said, talking more to herself then Sai. She muttered too quietly for him to hear the next bit, but her reply to him was the next thing she said following her muttering. "You idiot! Sai, burn that scroll right now, oh, never mind, ill just do it myself!"

His goddess knew his name. That made the next required response much simpler. She already had his name, but he still needed to know hers, even if the scroll said that the only name that mattered was the one you gave her. He had no desire to burn his scroll, it was teaching him the ways of true love! "I refuse fair maiden, for thou hast not given thy name to me yet!" He said, going with what he had read on the scroll and his gut feeling.

She responded by beating the crap out of him. Punches rained down upon him, and she grabbed the scroll soon after Sai went down to the ground. He did not strike back, no he could not strike back at his red haired goddess. She pulled out the scroll and burned it with a strong fire jutsu that left a crater in the ground. Turning back to him, she glared. "If you know what is good for you, forget that you have ever read that scroll. It is one of the most destructive things I have ever come across." She aimed that ball of chakra at him that looked curiously like a wind jutsu. "And if I catch you trying to do this to me again, I will have you put in the hospital for a month!"

From there she ran off, her beloved red hair flying around her as she took to the trees. Sai just reached into his bag and pulled out one of his copies. Whoever this Kuno person was, he was a genius. His scroll said that if the woman that you declare your love to causes any kind of physical damage to you, it shows that they accept, but are bound against loving you openly in some way, and require more effort to obtain. He kept his scroll on true love, courtesy of Blue Thunder publications, hidden for now. He would pursue his goddess as soon as feeling returned to his legs and nearly broken shoulder.

Naruto's heart was beating rapidly as he ran away from Sai. Half of the three years he spent with Jiraiya had been spent hunting down and burning these stupid scrolls. The publisher and author were the same man, a guy named Kuno. He was secretive, well hidden, and his publications had gone throughout most of lightning and fire country. It took a while but they hunted down the scrolls. They had never found the person making them, as he was always hiding somewhere the next time they got his trail. The worst part of the whole deal was the fact that this was one of Icha icha's direct competitors, and in terms of Jiraiya and his weird concepts on love, these scrolls had to be put down.

Sai, of all people, found one. He was the worst person to find such a scroll, with his misguided understanding of emotions. He always trusted in books and scrolls way too much for his own good, and now it was showing. In the hands of someone like Sai, these were dangerous. Naruto tried to remember what the scrolls taught, but most of it was in the speech of nobles, and had words that he never bothered to learn the kanji for in the academy.

He nearly coughed up a lung when he remembered what some of the scroll said. He had played right into Sai's hands. If the girl(which right now was him) responded with violence, those scrolls urged the user to go after them even more. Naruto blanched as he thought about the other stuff Jiraiya had told him about the scrolls. Some people had gone to great lengths to show their ideas of love, even to the point of large public showings of their declaration of love.

Walking back to Konoha proper, Naruto tried to calm down. He was the target of a lovesick Sai. He didn't even know how to respond to that. He would probably look at violence as an acceptance of love, which was just sickening. Naruto would have to get rid of him another way. He had no idea at the time, since everyone else who had possessed the scrolls in the past had been suitably insane, unwilling to budge once they had found a fixation for their 'love'. So now Naruto was the target of Sai's fixation. This was just wonderful.

Coming towards the hokage tower, Naruto felt more drained then normal. Having been holding a rasengan that entire conversation with Sai, he could feel the drain on his chakra reserves. It was weird that they felt smaller than normal, and after his run in with Sai they felt at about half strength. It didn't help that Naruto used his 'fires from the gates of hell' to burn the scroll, which was the best fire jutsu he knew, but for that scroll it was necessary. It had to be burned, and most of them were made with chakra resistant paper, making them hard to rip and burn.

People were getting used to the new ANBU with the fox mask, who they let right in. Tsunade was in a meeting with a few of the genin teams as they were checking back in with their completed missions. Naruto just had to wait by the door until she was done.

"Gaki," she said, "What is it now?"

Naruto just jumped into his usual chair, one by the wall and not within easy range of her fists. "Sai found a Blue Thunder publications scroll." Tsunade's face scrunched up in a combination of rage and agony. She had been one of the first victims when they were first being published. "He is fixated on me. On me!" Naruto groaned in frustration. "I don't even know what to do about it! Of all people, he is going to take everything that scroll says literally! Baa-chan, what do I do?"

Tsunade paced. "I almost killed mine, and then used a memory seal to remove me from his mind when he got too pushy. I don't know what that scroll does, but it fills the reader's mind with delusions of love. Sai might be a bit harder-headed than that." She sighed, looking at one of the small pictures of her and jiraiya when they were genin, sitting on her side of the desk. The spot where Orochimaru had been in the picture was replaced with someone cut out of an icha icha book. "Jiraiya would know what to do. Maybe even find the person responsible for this." She had a sad look on her face.

"I was with Jiraiya when we started trying to find this guy. He hides better than most people, but he leaves very few trails to follow. Not to mention if Sai keeps following me around he is going to see me transform. What then, baa-chan?"

She shook her head. "I have been thinking about that. You really need to know how to change back and forth effectively. Though I have already thought of a few ways to use that new face of yours." Naruto grimaced, hoping she was not talking about girly stuff. "Oh, don't worry about it. I was just thinking about using you for strike missions where we need to kill someone with no trace. Either that or I could send you to kunoichi training if you really want me to…" She just let that hang, enjoying the look of horror on Naruto's face.

"Baa-chan, you can't do that to me!" He whined, using his girlish voice to the best effect. "I can't be a kunoichi! You know that I could never even do anything like that!"

"Im still debating it just to shut you up Gaki." She grinned. "Ill even make Hinata do it."

Of all the people Naruto had to choose from for that kind of training, he would never choose Hinata. She was the one person he could count on to help him in all this, and he did not want her to be drawn into all this. "Baa-chan, I respect Hinata too much to have her do that."

Tsunade nodded. "Then it's a good thing I have a mission for you."

"What? Really?"

"Yes. I am sending you with whoever you decide to bring with you to go and investigate the old ruins of the Waterfall village and find anything that can help you understand your bloodline. If possible I want you to do this and get back to Konoha in a month. You are to leave immediately. So, go and pick your assistants. Oh, and make sure you bring back some of Waterfall country's signature sake. I hear that it is quite good."

Then there was a knock on the doors of the office. Tsunade just yelled at them to come in. It was another of the ANBU, who seemed agitated. "Hokage-sama, Iruka has desecrated the Hokage monument's cliff face!"

Tsunade turned from her chair to look up at the monument. Someone was hanging from the top with what appeared to be a can of paint. He was not writing anything on the faces of the kages, but was instead writing some very large kanji above them.

These kanji clearly read, 'Hikari will you marry me'. He was finishing the last kanji as they looked at him. There were cries of delight from the female population of the village at this, and groans from the male population. Proposing to women just got a whole lot harder. Tsunade just laughed, and Naruto felt something weird but he just pushed it down and associated it with his girlish form.

"Let it stand." Tsunade said. "I want to see if she accepts." Hikari was another chuunin from Iruka's age group, someone that Naruto had only met a couple of times. "Get going, gaki. I expect you to be on the road before that girl reaches the monument."

Naruto ran. Tsunade in a happy mood would quickly lead to a drunk Tsunade and a very much in pain Naruto. So, he left, as did the other ANBU, both sharing a look that the other knew exactly why they left.

"Where is my sake?" This only convinced them to run faster.

Naruto was now faced with trying to get Hinata to go with him on this mission. This meant trying to get her out of her family's complex, and to come with him on a mission with no clear goals or parameters besides be back in one month. Also worrying was the fact that he hadn't changed back yet, and it was well past time for him to change back into his real self. It had been a while since changing, and strangely his chakra reserves still felt pretty low. Combined with the seal being more complete on this body, he couldn't access the Kyuubi's chakra.

So, now he was trying to decide how to go about getting Hinata out of the Hyuuga complex so he could get going out of Konoha. Apparently Iruka had gotten a yes from his fiancé, so he really was out of time. He was at the restaurant down the street from the Hyuuga complex, just trying to think of something legitimate to get him in the doors. A hand on his shoulder about made his heart stop.

Hiashi Hyuuga was standing right there, with one eyebrow raised. Naruto near about had a heart attack as his body reacted, as he jumped and clung to the ceiling, letting off a girlish scream. Oh, how he hated this female form some times. It was too easily surprised and that darn red hair blocked his side view, ANBU mask not helping either.

"I noticed you outside of the complex, and was hoping that you had a letter from the Hokage. Do you have that letter, ANBU-san?"

The few patrons at the restaurant were all snickering about an ANBU that had gotten scared by Hiashi. Naruto just slowly released his hold and jumped down, nodding at Hiashi's question. He followed the clan leader out of the restaurant and down the street to the complex. Not a word was said until they got to that same sitting room as before.

"So, what brings you here, ANBU-san?" Hiashi asked. His face showed nothing but a calm exterior. The word ANBU had been stretched a little, the tone showing that Hiashi knew exactly who Naruto was.

"Well, Tsunade wanted to assemble a team for a mission, and Hinata was one of the people going on that mission." Not all the truth, but in her achohol-ridden state no one would dare interrupt her right now. They risked hospitalization and then further damage once she would start her shift at the hospital.

"Ah." Hiashi said coolly. "What is the mission? You realize that as the clan heir she cannot be released onto a major mission without clan approval." Naruto was not sure if that was true, but if it was he was screwed. Hiashi would never let Hinata go on a mission to find some lost information, especially if she was gone an entire month.

"Well, Tsunade wants to have the remains of Waterfall village investigated, and I was told to bring anyone I chose." Naruto said. Byukagan users could tell if you were lying.

"So, you want my daughter to come with you? What kind of security is there? Who else has been assigned to the mission?" Each question was asked meticulously and slowly. Then he asked the final question that Naruto really did not want to answer. "How long is this mission to continue?"

"Well," Naruto crossed his fingers in agitation. "She is the only one I trust to come with me." There was a long pause while Hiashi raised his eyebrow. "Uh, I think we might be gone a month, maybe less?"

Hiashi frowned. Naruto was about ready to die for asking that question. Well, in his mind he was asking for something akin to a death sentence. Hiashi was overprotective of his daughter, and leaving the village for a month definitely qualified for triggering his over-protectiveness. "I believe that this is not something I would encourage, much less allo-"

Hinata herself, who stuck her head around the corner, saying softly, "Give me five minutes to prepare, Naruto-kun", interrupted him! Her face was all red for some reason, though. Both Hiashi and Naruto just sat there in silence, waiting to see what would happen. Hinata was gone, already running towards her room.

Hiashi looked at Naruto with a frosty glare. "It appears my hand is forced. But I warn you, Uzumaki, if anything happens to her, I will find you and kill you. Not even your vaunted Kyuubi will save you if anything happens to Hinata." Naruto was shaking in his extra large baggy pants. The killing intent rolling off of Hiashi was enough to drive him six feet under the ground, which was prevented by the couch he was currently sitting on. Thank goodness for its solid construction, as it did not reveal the currently shaking condition of the person it contained. "In fact, I will do the following forms of torture to you if anything happens to my daughter while she is under your care, beginning with-"

His description of torture, which most certainly would have sent him into blissful unconsciousness, was interrupted by the very person he had been threatening Naruto to defend. She was smiling, ready and dressed in her travelling clothes.

"Father, if you are quite done threatening him, we will take our leave and return promptly in one month as you have so readily agreed." She said strongly, though her hesitation was evident in the way her voice changed octaves slightly as she spoke. Naruto was just thankful for someone to pull him out of what could possibly be the most awkward situation of the day, even counting what Sai had done earlier.

Hiashi slowed down and stopped frowning, even letting up on his death glare at Naruto. This gave the opening necessary for him to escape, running out of the front door as fast as his legs could carry him. He had no desire to be around this man for longer than absolutely necessary. Hinata kept pace with him, a smile on her face.

Unknown to them, right after they left, Hiashi had gotten rid of the face he had been making at Naruto. It was just too terribly fun to intimidate the boy, even though he was arguably one of the village's strongest members. With one check of the Byukagan to see if anyone was watching, he quickly started his own little victory dance. Fan waving madly, he gave a loud exclamation of happiness and then cleared his throat to recover his "lost" composure. Hopefully this month long trip would lead to his ever-faster approaching retirement. His daughter had a whole month alone with the boy she was madly in love with. He better do something about it, even with all of the intimidation. If not, Hiashi would just keep intimidating him until the boy finally broke or found a way to stand up to him.

"Being a girl sucks!" Naruto yelled, not caring who heard him. The whiny voice carried quite a distance when he wanted it to. His shoes had fallen off of his tiny little feet again. This was the third time this morning, and when you are tree hopping, it is a big pain to have to go and get the shoe back. Naruto didn't slow down, he just made a shadow clone(who also was lacking one shoe) and sent it to go get it.

He had not changed back into his male form for the last two days as they were traveling. This was more than slightly alarming, and Hinata didn't have any idea about how to fix it either. Not that she didn't try, however. She had studied his transformation before with her eye techniques but had not revealed anything new. So he just had remained a girl for the last two days. His clothes were the least of his problems. His smaller chakra source would be mostly expended trying to tree run all day, which left him drained, even though he knew that normally he could handle all of that no problem. It was aggravating, to feel winded on things that normally were simple. At least Hinata seemed to have the same physical limitations as he did when he was a girl.

As for his hair, it had been the worst on the first day. Since he always thought he would be changing back he never really brushed it, and the amount of leaves and dirt that got stuck in it after a day of tree running had taken almost an hour to brush out, which Hinata helped with. Girls must find getting their hair combed a theraputic process, because Naruto actually felt better once it was all cleaned out. To solve the hair promblem, Hinata tied it into one long braid. Less annoying but easier and it didn't block his vision like it normally did.

"You are just letting it get to you, Naruto-kun." Hinata replied in a normal voice. She had gotten more comfortable around him too, getting red in the face less and less as they spent more time together. In Naruto's opinion it was probably the food in the Hyuuga compound. Ramen was much better. Though Hinata had promised him that the next time they were back in Konoha she would show him something called ice cream. Whatever that was it was expensive in fire country, but Hinata said that all girls like it, and with him being a girl some of the time she said that he had to try it. Oh well, maybe it would be worth it.

"I just really want my body back. I don't know why im still stuck like this, I usually am able to change back no problem, even twice in the same day back in Konoha. Do you think it is because I left the village? Did someone do this to me to keep me there?" He was starting to think some vary deviant thoughts about some of his fellow ninja. Since almost all of them had been pranked at one time or another by Naruto he was trying to think if any of them would have gotten revenge like this.

Hinata giggled. "You just are trying to understand your kekkei genkai. We have never seen anyone with such a bloodline, and anyone with it would most likely keep it secret. Having a second complete body is a large advantage in the ninja world. You just don't really like it yet."

"Like It yet?" Naruto said back in exasperation. "Would you like it if you changed into a guy?"

Hinata giggled again and looked back at him. She had a red tinge on her cheeks. "If you were there to help me I wouldn't mind it so much."

Naruto didn't quite know how to reply to that. He just sat there, mouth moving but making no sound. Hinata had just said the opposite of what he had expected to say. He stopped tree jumping in thought, allowing his shadow clone to come back with his lost shoe. He was still trying to think of what to say as he puled on his overly large shoe, tying it down as much as possible so that it might actually stay on longer. This seemed to be in vain, as it only barely hung onto his foot.

"Do you think I am getting shorter or anything?" He asked, changing the subject. "I feel like my shoes are having a harder time fitting."

Hinata laughed. "Maybe being a girl is harder. Try using some of your bandages from your medical kit."

Naruto found this advice very helpful. Smiling, he looked back at Hinata before continuing. "I would help you if you had my same problem." Hinata had a slight blush as Naruto said this. "I'm happy to have someone like you to help me through this."

"Naruto-kun, I would have helped you even if I didn't think of you as my b-b-best friend." Naruto thought she was going to say something different but he supposed it was just her usual stuttering. They just continued on their journey, both smiling. It felt nice. Even though he was a girl right now, things were positive, well, for the most part.

Two days after that, they finally arrived at the country once known as waterfall. It sat in between Iwa and Konoha, which was not the best place during the last great ninja war. It was also right next to the land of rice paddies, which contained the hidden sound village, a fact that they were not aware of. The sound village had been rather quiet in the last two years, not sending out any new ninja and seemingly falling to pieces without its founder, Orochimaru.

They still existed, however. Their scouts had seals set up if anyone came near their outposts, and Naruto had set off a few on his way across the border. Their presence was known, and hidden sound village was prepared to stop what they thought was the first steps of an invasion. Their response would come as surely as Naruto kept breathing.

Waterfall country was flat, humid, and lightly forested. Outcroppings of rock existed in the rolling flatland. Hills existed the more to the northwest you went, and there were quite a few clusters of trees. They were not the trees of Konoha, which were tall and thick, large enough to allow travel through the canopy. These trees were small and craggy, only good for hiding in the clumps or behind lone trees. Naruto and Hinata had been keeping their chakra use low, but still moving at ninja speeds. This area had been claimed by both Iwa and Konoha during the last war, and so there was a good chance that there might be another group of ninjas out there. The neighboring nations of rice paddies and grass both had ninja of smaller caliber, so they had to move quietly. Naruto was still stuck in his girl form, and was getting more and more paranoid about it.

Hinata was helping him, especially with the clothing problems, which were becoming worse. Naruto was now borrowing some of HInata's clothes, from her spare bag. Her things fit his smaller form better than his oversize clothes. His main complaint was the lack of orange. Hinata had taught Naruto about chest bindings, something that made his life a lot easier being stuck as a girl. A lot less painful for him and his back, too. More especially Hinata helped with the hair problem. Naruto wanted to cut the aggravating stuff off, but what body mass his hair corresponded to would also be missing in his male form when he changed back. So, every night he was trying to learn how to brush hair. He felt awkward about asking Hinata to help him, but she never had a problem with it.

When they finally arrived at the old site of the waterfall village, he found it rather interesting. The village had been created at the fork or two rivers, at a place that a lot of the springs in the area came up around. The two rivers forked around the site of the old village, and then about a half mile down the river came back together and became a gigantic waterfall. The cliff formed one of the natural barriers around the area, and the river made approach from the south difficult. So to the west laid the road to Iwa, and on the west the road to Konoha, but both were very faded. Few if anyone used them anymore.

The village itself was mostly ruins, all following the river and mostly on the waterfront. Deeper into the island like village, and there was a lot more ruins, where the center of the village must have been. Signs of the destruction still showed from the decades-old battle, signs where a summoned creature must have gone right through a house, or a doton jutsu had torn apart the natural flow of the streets. At the very center were two ruined fountains, which both still had water running through them even after the devastation. To both of their amazement, one had hot water running out of it and the other had cold water. That was strange, to have two fountains for such things.

"What do you think these were for?" He asked Hinata, by now used to his female voice.

"I am not sure, though there appears to be a very detailed plumbing system underneath them." She said, her Byukagan eyes turned on already. "Naruto-kun, look at this one! There, under the water!" She said, pointing something out to him.

In the hot water spring there was a large section of the bottom that did not appear to be broken or harmed. At the very center was a single small tile that almost looked to be the same as those around it, except for a detail within one of the corners. Hinata was pointing right at it. Naruto focused, looking through the water to see the detail. It was a small symbol, of a red swirl with a circle in the middle. Naruto knew that symbol. He had worn it every day of his life. Seeing it on something else, though, that was new. This meant a lot to him. He smiled, seeing something that was part of his family, and a feeling rose inside of him. It felt almost like loss, but it was partly happy. He had never felt this way for something like this before, as if he was both finding and losing something very precious to him at the same time.

Hinata let him sit and think about it for a little longer before speaking. "Naruto, it is hard to see past the pipes, but I think that there is a chamber underneath here. That mark is a seal."

Naruto leaned closer over the water. Sure enough, the small mark was actually a seal. He smiled. "Only one way to find out if it works. Ready?" At her nod, he placed his hand on the small tile with the seal and flared his chakra into it. He felt the seal respond, blasting him back with chakra and the hot water. Naruto was confused until he felt the transformation hit him again, though this time it felt different. It felt more forced this time, the change coming on faster and a little bit painfully. He groaned as his body grew, which was not doing very nice things to the wrappings on his shoes and chest. Hinata saw this and cut them, thankfully. In less than a minute his body changed back into its male self, the water from the fountain completely emptying itself.

"Yes, I'm me again!" he declared loudly, forgetting for a moment where they were. "How the heck did that work?"

"It was different than usual, Naruto-'kun'." She stressed the last word. IT was said with a smile. "Hopefully next time we can predict it so that you might be able to save our bandage supply."

Naruto breathed in, enjoying the feeling of being back in his own male form. With more than a little discomfor he handed back Hinata's clothes and got back out his own, rushing behind the fountain to get dressed. When they came back, they both looked back down into the fountain. There was now a small opeing in the bottom, just barely large enough for someone to fit through. Naruto went first, finding it easy to get through and down into a system of pipes that seemed to be running to both of the fountains. There was a lot of debris from the damages here, but it was mostly from the walls. Probably shaken by some strong jutsus. He waited until Hinata had come down before continuing.

She was smiling, taking in his newly returned male form. "I think that there is a chamber ahead of us, it looks like some sort of central connection for the pipes."

Naruto nodded, moving forward to the chamber through the maze of pipes and plumbing fixtures. Sure enough, the pathway opened up into a larger chamber, where all of the pipes came together. Unfortunately, one end of it had completely collapsed, rubble covering the section that had once controlled the water intake. The pipes were fine, explaining the good condition of the fountains, but the ability to control them had been completely removed.

As he moved into it, he saw that at one time there had been other pathways but those had also collapsed. So now this was a dead end, rusted and collapsed. He sighed, truly hoping that he would have found something out here. Hinata saw this and activated her eye technique again, searching for anything that might help Naruto.

"There is another seal on the wall here, Naruto-kun." Hinata said, searching in between the pipelines and finding a small section of wall that seemed to be almost too perfectly preserved. There, hidden in the groove of the wall, was a small seal that was tucked away in one of the pipe housings.

Naruto came over and placed his hand on this one as well, and then flared his chakra into it. The pipe was one of the larger ones, but seemed to lead away from the two fountains, unlike the rest of the pipes. It popped off its housing, spraying him with cold water as it did so. This time he could feel the water charged with chakra, and when it hit him he could feel himself transforming back into his female form. He couldn't even groan in annoyance as he shrunk back down to his unnatural proportions, standing slightly shorter than Hinata. The red haze, or rather hair covering his face, was back. Thankfully it looked clean and well taken care of, unlke when he had left it. It appeared that when he switched forms some things were restored, such as chakra and his ability to move. Soreness and physical damage seemed to be healed, though he could still feel the days of travel in his female form. Perhaps they healed while he was not in that form, but he didn't really know if he could find out that answer.

Groaning, he pulled open his hair like a set of drapes and looked at the pipe housing. It was now looking like an open tunnel, if you crawled in. It also appeared that only someone very small could fit into it, making his latest change somewhat helpful. Shrugging off his discomfort at being female again, he climbed into the tunnel. Hinata he could feel was right behind him, barely fitting into the tunnel. Naruto realized that the only way he could have fit into this place was if he was in his girl form. Then he felt the tunnel take a bit of a dive. About two hundred feet of a dive, in reality.

Screaming like the female he resembled, he slid all two hundred feet of the downward trend of the pipe trying to cling to something. Rust and decay covered Naruto as he went sliding down, years of buildup not slowing his fast descent. The pipe ended by dropping Naruto onto the remains of what might have been a bed, or something nice to land on. He and all of the crud he had picked up from the tunnel landed in a heap, followed by Hinata landing right on his back. She, he noticed, had not been screaming. Or that might have been because he had been drowning her out. His voice was whiny as a girl. It was certainly possible.

"Sorry Naruto-kun." She said softly from his back. She seemed to have been screaming right along with him, judging by the way she was taking in deep breaths.

She got off of him, allowing him to stand up and take stock of where they were. The room they were in was very well preserved, some water in places, but very well preserved. There was no real source of light outside of what the pipe was giving, making both of them nearly blind. Naruto reached out, walking forward. His shoes came right off, having not been retied over his smaller feet. This lead to him tripping over his fallen shoes, and dumping him all over the floor. Standing back up, he gathered his hair and stuffed it down his shirt so that it would no longer bother him. Or at least not so blatantly. His next step found something very solid. So solid that he stubbed his toe and nearly broke it.

Yelping in pain, he could hear Hinata coming to try to help, but she only tripped over the fallen shoes and fell right into Naruto. Both yelping now, they fell onto some sort of low table. Hinata's face was right next to his, and for some reason he felt his cheeks heat up in what almost felt like discomfort. He also could feel that the only way he could get her off of him was to push her in areas that he had no intention of pushing.

"Um, H-h-hinata, can you get off of me?" Now he was the one stuttering! Why was this? His voice just refused to calm down as he spoke. Was this whatever Hinata was effected by?

Before she could get off, the table gave in, the old legs giving way and collapsing both of them to the floor. Hinata collapsed even more firmly on top of him, their faces right next to each other. Naruto, conditioned by Sakura and her reactions to him entering her personal space, just froze. Hinata seemed afraid of something, judging by the way her heart beat sped up and the way she just froze up as well.

For almost five minutes neither of them did anything, too afraid of the other to even do more than just breath. Their heads were buried in each others shoulders, and Naruto could feel Hinata breathing on him. But strangely, she didn't hit him for being so close. Rather, after a few minutes she just held him softly. Like an invisible signal going off, they both felt more than a little iuncomfortable and separated. Naruto felt so embarrassed that his cheeks were going to burn right off.

"So, yeah, um," Naruto said, trying to just focus on something other than his embarrassment, "Do you have anything to give us some light in here?" His voice stuttered as bad as Hinata had ever spoken, even cracking as he tried to ask his question.

"H-hai." Was Hinata's reply, also spoken in the same troubled voice. Naruto hoped that he was not catching something from her. Being sick as a girl he could not really contemplate without a great feeling of discomfort. She fumbled around for a bit, in which Naruto was able to get his breathing under control, and then the room lit up under the light of a small lamp, held high in Hinata's hand.

Naruto and Hinata could see the room fully now, which was little more than a drainage pump and siunken area on the side with the pipe, and on the other there was a small set of alcoves, scrolls set into them. The small table that had collapsed also had a small chair for sitting in, obviously menat for someone to read the scrolls from. Also included in the room was a lamp set into the ceiling for reading.

On the far wall away from the pipe-tunnel entrance was a large symbol, the same symbol that was for Naruto's clan. Right underneath that was an ornamental scroll case, with one scroll in it that seemed well preserved. Naruto grabbed this one first. He felt the seal on the scroll flare for a moment, and then his chakra seemed to react to it. To his surprise it unfurled on its own, naruto holding it so that it did not unfurl onto the wet floor. It contained a note, in a pure small script.

_To my descendant, near or far,_

_This scroll will only be able to be read by you or anyone else who has the cursed bloodline of jusenkyo. I, the writer of this scroll, you can readily blame for starting this bloodline. Suffice to say it was my mistake to pick up this curse, and I never realized that it would pass on to my children. _

_My name was originally Ranma Saotome, and I was born in a faraway land that you will hopefully never have to worry about. I came here with a few companions, one of whom I married and had children with. I don't think you need to hear about that, however. If you are reading this scroll you are most likely looking for ways to control your curse. Unfortunately, there are none. The curse is something that will happen regardless of what you do. So, as for my advice after decades of trying to find a way around it, simply get used to it. _

_The curse originated with some springs of water, cursed to make any victim of the pools(whether by getting splashed or dunked) transform into the last thing to drown in the pools. I fell into the spring of drowned girl, as you can probably tell. The curse only effects male descendants, though female descendants will pass on the curse more strongly to their children. The curse will not pass to a female from a female, only from a female to a male, as I have seen. Though if you are reading this scroll you are probably looking for other information._

_The curse originally worked through water. Cold woter sent the victim into their cursed form, and hot water returned them to their original body. If you are wondering, the cursed body is a whole different body on its own, physically as if you had been born female. Oh, and if you are wondering, yes red hair does follow our family line. _

_The bloodline is a little different. The cursed blood only starts to activate at the age of 18, which is a benefit, though it came as a slight surprise to me, as it would be to any parent. Your two bodies produce two different sources of chakra, and each is accurate to its gender. When one of the bodies recharges its chakra fully, it starts to build up a charge of energy for that gender. When that energy reaches critical mass, this fuels the transformation. If you want to avoid transforming, just make sure your chakra is never fully recharged. You cannot transform if your chakra is low or depleted. _

_You can force your transformation, however, by using water. Hot water for returning to normal, and cold for gaining your cursed form. Just charge the water with your chakra, enough to fuel a transformation, and then soak yourself. This is about the limit of your control, however. If you are reading this hoping for a cure for this, get in line. Many have tried and failed. If you are looking for ways to control it, read the above again. _

_However, if you truly consider it, this bloodline is one of the most powerful out there. It is difficult to copy, but possible. Above all keep its existence a secret, as it can be stolen through your blood, and then you will never know the face of your attacker. Most importantly, never let your second face be connected to your first. Create a new identity for your alternate self. You will need it. _

_Before I died I compiled many scrolls like this one, and then hid them throughout the village just in case. Hopefully the area around you is still filled with scrolls. They are sealed like this one, save that anyone can read them. It contains my art, which if mastered will make you a kage level taijutsu user. You will hopefully be able to do that much at least. _

_Last of all, and most important, live up to your name. Uzumaki was the name I made for myself in this world. You will bring much honor to yourself and those related to you as long as you treasure that name. If you don't treasure it I will find you in the afterlife and show you what hell truly looks like. _

_Ranma Uzumaki_

Naruto was blown away. His bloodline was a curse? No real way to control it? How was he supposed to keep up an alternate identity if he couldn't control it?

"He isn't being very helpful, Naruto-kun." Hinata said.

"Hinata! I thought I was the only person who could read this!"

"Naruto, when you read you have to sound out your words. It was pretty easy to keep up with you." She said, giggling. Naruto deflated, sighing at his own faults. At least by now he no longer had that weird embarrassed feeling. She stood up and moved to the wall, carefully taking the old scrolls out of their holdings and sealing them in a sealing scroll. Naruto realized that this room was definitely not the place to be studying old scrolls, especially ones that were his.

"Hinata, how do we get out of here?" Naruto said, looking at the dingy old pipe that was the entrance. It was slick, rusted, and dented from much of the rubble that had fallen upon it. Naruto had felt every dent, he was sure, on the way down. Most of the slick moss and such had also been carried down, and the rusted metal was most likely not able to hold their weight if they tried to make it up.

It took a few hours of effort to get up the pipe, requiring more than a few toad summons and Hinata's ability with her eyes to find solid spots of the pipe to move around to. The toads had a good laugh at Naruto's expense, finding his bloodline rather humiliating. Naruto would not summon a couple of these toads ever again. Jiraiya had rubbed off on them too much for their own good. Hinata just laughed at the whole thing, finding it hilarious. Her laugh was a quiet one, almost a snicker, but when you heard it the sound seemed to be hidden behind her hand.

"So, should we head back to Konoha now that we have this?" Naruto said, motioning to the storage scroll that contained everything they had found.

"No." Hinata said. "There might be more for us to find out here. That and I like being out here w-where I can b-be happy." He thought she was trying to say something else, but it must have come out differently than she wanted.

"Alright." Naruto said. "Maybe we can find more of these scrolls that taught my great-granpa's taijutsu."

The rest of the week was spent looking for more of these caches of scrolls, in which they were mildly successful. They found a couple more, thanks to their combined abilities. To them, it was fun, exhilarating, and it simply felt nice to be able to spend time together.

Unfortunately, for every great thing that happens in someone's life, there is usally some sort of karma attached to them that brings great problems as well. For Naruto, those problems were all converging. Teams had been sent from the hidden stone village, from Iwa, from the hidden sound village, and then lastly from Konoha. Doubly unfortunate was the simple fact that no one had bothered to warn Naruto that they were coming.

The Observer watched, waiting for the right time to strike. Or rather, waiting for the right time to get a good look at his love again. She was hiding in a building, and had not come out in many hours. Oh, how he longed to see his red haired goddess once again. To make sure of himself, he checked over his scroll once again. He had to make sure that she was doing what he thought she was doing.

_At times thine deepest love shall attempt to run away from you. She may run as far as three countries away, but not four. Rest assured that this only makes her love you ever more deeply. _Yes, his love had run only two countries away from Konoha. That in itself was a surety that gave him confidence that she was still thinking about him. Looking at the scroll again, he read what it told him to do next. _Thine love must know that you still pine after her. Persue her to the location of her sorrow, and then show your love by challenging her yet again to comba. She will most certainly fall to thine prowess, for distance has made her heart grow fonder unto thee._ He nodded. He had cautght up to her, that was for sure. She had left Konoha, he had persued, and now he was going to declare his love for her, she would accept, and he would come home the conquering hero! Yes, for sure this was going to work.

So, he had to wait until she was alone. This was difficult with that Hyuuga girl she always seemed to be spending time with. Unfortunately his guiding scroll had nothing to say regarding dealing with female friends, almost as if the author himself, god-gifted in the ways of women, just seemed to ignore that. He had almost made an attempt earlier, but the Byukagan had scared him off.

As he pondered his love, he saw something out of the corner of his vision. Focusing on it, he could see three ninja on their way to the broken village. Even at a glance he could tell that they were heavily armed, almost as if they knew that rival ninja were in the area. Looking down, he read the scroll in another important section. This time it cautioned the user, _Letting others defeat thine goddess in combat is a sign of grave oiffense to one's character. Do not let this occur, for this is thine right alone!_

Sai straightened his clothing out and brought out his paintbrush. This scroll had given him a chance to understand the meaning of love, surely it was not wrong when It came to something he could so readily understand. He would earn the right to love his goddess, even if it meant going up against significantly greater odds of defeat. To him, there was no retreat.

Naruto was rudely awakened out of his nap. This was to the sound of fighting going on outside of the building they had holed up in, of rocks flying around like children's toys. Hinata was already up, pulling on her jacket and scanning the area with her Byukagan. Naruto, in female form, struggled to gather everything needed for a fight. Scrolls were everywhere, from the week or two they had spent learning about his great grandfather's techniques.

"Three ninja, right outside, fighting against a single target. He appears to be using chakra constructs made out of a liquid to fight against them, but he is being forced into the open." Hinata said. "Judging by their configuration, they appear to be a heavy strike team. I am not suited to this kind of combat, Naruto. They specialize in ninjutsu, and I would be hard-pressed to fight three at once." Naruto nodded at this.

"Seal the scrolls and our stuff, I'll hold them off. I need to test out my family taijutsu I have been learning anyways." Naruto said in his female form's sing-song voice. Grabbing some armbands, Naruto then moved to the door. Outside things were already a mess. The ground was torn up from the three man squad, and the other ninja fighting them was somewhere beyond the rubble.

Naruto stayed under the cover of the damaged buildings and broken masonry as he analized the two sides. The Iwa ninja, the three man squad, all appeared to be Chuunin. Hopefully just a border patrol, but the border was almost twenty miles away. Naruto did not like the large sized scrolls that each of them were carrying, signs of heavy weapons in their contents.

Thankfully they wouldn't take him seriously when he looked like this. Tucking his red hair behind, he watched as the ninja approached the small copse of trees where their opponent had been hiding. Unfortunately, his small form brought a further curse. The sound of his long hair in the wind was noticeable to one of the Iwa shinobi, who turned back to him and started moving after the flash of red. Naruto groaned, wishing that he could get rid of what was in his opinion a giant attention grabber. Then again, his old orange jacket was worse than this. It took Jiraiaya a while to knock some sense into his brain.

Unfortunately the flash of red hair was noticed by more than just the Iwa nin. Bursting from his cover, Naruto saw the worst person he could ever wish for step into view. Sai, looking more smug and possibly an attempt at being gallant, came forward in front of the other two ninja. Naruto just wanted to cover his face. This would be bad, he could already tell.

"None of you foul cretins are allowed to set a hand upon my goddess!" Sai loudly declared, almost making it impossible to not grab everyone's attention. "My red-haired Goddess is mine, and the right to fight for her does not belong to such as you!" The fact that it sounded like he had recited this made the effect less than what was to be expected.

The Iwa ninja responded by laughing. Sai looked out of place, coming out and giving up his position. Naruto just looked around for better cover, but the ruins did not offer much.

"A redhead, eh?" One of the Iwa ninja said. "Guess if we kill her you will die too, eh?" Naruto drew a blade and got ready to unleash an attack. Unfortunately, he could not use any of his signature moves, since that would identify himself. That left the academy moves, which did not bode well. He couldn't even use his kage bunshin no jutsu, and a lot of his tactics relied on that.

Sending a slight pulse of chakra, he felt for his seal with the Kyuubi. It felt fine, whole, possibly different compared to the seal in his male form. It also felt like there was no way for him to freely grab onto the demonic chakra. That was not good at all. This left him only the taijutsu he had been learning for all of two weeks. In response to this he only groaned. At least the taijutsu was focused to teach him to be able to use it no matter what form he was in.

The sound of rock moving behind him alerted him to the prescense of the Iwa ninja. Jumping, he began with the opening move of the Anything Goes style of taijutsu. This was a solid kick to the head, meant to also include obscenities, but Naruto didn't know how to incorporate that quite well enough yet, which the Iwa ninja was not prepared for. It was lightning fast, and judging by the halfway decent for a genin kawamiri no jutsu, jarred the ninja pretty badly. Naruto did pride himself on being unpredictable. Too bad that ninja had been holding primed explosive notes.

That explosion required a kawamiri to escape, placing Naruto back on the same side as Sai. The rock he switched with was completely obliterated, as was the previous cover. The three Iwa ninja were quickly making hand seals, the one Naruto had previously kicked recovering pretty fast. His companions were already moving to cover him. So, they were a trained team, not just together for comfort, but a trained combat team. Naruto groaned, knowing that he could beat down these ninja no problem, and he couldn't unless they found out about his male form. He had already drained some of his chakra, so the chances of him randomly changing back were very low.

"My goddess!" Sai exclaimed, looking more manic than Naruto had ever seen him. Then again, he somehow followed them here, so that made him pretty badly effected by the scroll. Naruto and Jiraiya had been pretty sure that it had a subtle genjutsu on it, but all of their studies of the subject lead to nothing. The scroll just taught something horrible to those with open mindedness. Sai, having spent years in Root, was easily caught by genjutusu. Still, this did not help at all when this scroll came into play. "Where shall I strike?"

Naruto groaned. The form of speech that the scroll taught was already being ingrained into him. This was not a good sign, as this usually meant that they subject was beyond recovery. Now Naruto looked at the enemy ninja. The one that Naruto had struck had grey hair, and the other two had brown hair. "Take out the ones with brown hair. Don't call me your goddess or ill kill you." Naruto told him, knowing it was probably already too late to save Sai from mental damage.

"I will do so, my love!" Not much better, but at least he was still listening and not trying to attack his female form in some pagan declaration of love.

Sai was nasty to fight. Naruto knew that for a certainty. The Iwa ninja did not. Their hands finished a seal, one of them making earth spikes and the other making a ditch around them, pinning them into one small area for the spikes to target. Sai just carried them off the ground with an ink chakra construct, in the form of a large bird. After the fight with Deidara and Sasori Sai had been working on this, a construct he could ride.

Naruto smiled ashe saw Sai pulling out more scrolls, construct animals that he had drawn from the forest of death pouring down onto the enemy ninja. Naruto didn't see the grey haired ninja, but he knew that he was out there. Whatever jutsu he had performed, it was giving off no chakra or signs it had been completed. That meant that the third jutsu that had been completed was either genjutsu or a stealth ninjutsu. His senses, primed for detecting just such a thing as this, felt the bird they were riding get hit by a nasty jutsu.

Sai fell straight at the pair of brown haired ninja, seemingly hurt, but Naruto knew better. Hopefuly his taijutsu was enough to take on the both of them. Naruto himself dropped, feeling a chakra prescense behind him. Just perfect, he thought. Twisting, he felt a star kunai cleave through the air in the spot he was just in. it didn't help Naruto too much, but he used a normal bunshin no jutsu on the way down to cover his landing. There, right in front of him, was the grey haired Iwa jounin. He was coming down with a sword. Naruto dodged, letting his bunshin take the hit. He thought he was fine, but then saw some strands of red hair dropping towards the ground.

No one else had red hair here. Naruto glared with the most hate he could conjure for this person. For all he knew, that might have just been enough to leave his male form a neutered freak. Chakra flaring, he opened up with a move he had been learning from his family taijutsu scrolls.

"Chestnut fist!" This technique involved pumping chakra to your hands, and then accelerating them in a non stp rage of punches, and was meant to be done as a finishing move. Of course, Naruto did not know how to punch with this technique and not break his hand. So, instead, he just held kunai in his hands and punched like he had been taught. The moment he did so, he felt vulnerable to attack. Both of his hands were occupied, and the Iwa ninja took great advantage of that. An earth dragon jutsu slammed into him, taking him to a sudden stop when it crushed him against some of the ruins.

Looking at the grey haired ninja, Naruto smiled. That technique was quite deadly, judging by the body on the ground. The earth dragon jutsu had come from one of the other ninja, who seemed to be beating the unholy crap out of Sai. Naruto struggled to get up, torn between letting him suffer and saving him from some sort of grisly death. Still, in order to do that he had to stand up. This proved a bit impossible, the many broken ribs of his body preventing a lot of breathing, much less combat. That jutsu had him stopped cold, hopefully to the point he would stop focusing on Naruto.

Then Hinata appeared, right in between the two enemy ninja. Naruto observed as she coolly tore them apart, tenketsu point by tenketsu point. Both dropped to the ground, Bleeding in many places. It all was over in a matter of seconds, but Naruto had taken a really bad hit. Sai, on the other hand, was bleeding out o the ground. He had just taken some sort of jutsu, and was not doing so well. Studying his prone position, Naruto realized that they both got hit by the same move. Sai must have taken one of them. Noticing the patterns on the ground, he realized that Sai had taken the other half of what was supposed to have killed him. Naruto had been saved… by Sai? Sai, of all people! He was Uzumaki Naruto, and he certainly did not need saving!

Angry at the world, he did not notice until it was too late the thousands of kunai. Each one had some sort of note on them, none of them explosive. These landed all around Hinata, who immediately took a defensive position. Naruto tried to get up, but his body only let him reach his knees.

Each kunai had a string tied to another one near it, making a pattern of sorts, almost as if they formed a ring around their target. Naruto tried to yell at Hinata but it was too late. The circle of kunai all had strings that formed a seal around her, and Naruto watched as her body went slack, collapsing and passing out. Naruto did not like this at all. This technique was way beyond what they had seen the Iwa ninja perform so far.

Naruto used a kage bunshin and a regular bunshin together to get behind cover, waiting to see what would be fighting them next. He did not expect the enemy ninja to walk out of the trees, alone and unceremoniously. The hakama he wore was loosely fitted, and his black hair hung around his head like a haze. Perhaps if Naruto had been born female he would be very interested in this person right now, but the reality was far different. The enemy ninja had an Oto headband, but with a large marking on either side of it.

"Sasuke!" Naruto growled. This situation just got worse, possibly going to the level of crappiest day of his life worse.

The man in question just watched him, probably thinking he was someone else. Naruto could use this to his advantage, but with all of these broken ribs there was no chance that he would be able to fight him effectively. His healing factor was starting to help, but it wouldn't make any difference in the amount of time he had.

"Girl," Sasuke stated, now standing above him. Naruto could see why Ino and Sakura had such appeal for the guy on a physical level. Thankfully he believed that Sasuke was a trashbag with a mouth, since he had deserted his village. "Tell me what I want to know and I will grant you a quick death. If not you will be subjected to years of torture and experimentation before I grant you this option again." Oh yeah, he was still a bastard.

Sasuke was the known leader of Otogakure, the hidden Sound ninja village, and had been since the death of Orochimaru. His Sharingan eyes were turned off, but any moment he could activate them and probably realize who he was talking to. Then again, this was a completely different body, so Naruto might have that advantage.

Naruto just followed his instincts and used a Shunshin no jutsu to try to get out of the area, maybe to someplace he could get hot water. Being back in his real body might give him the advantage he needed. Sasuke was quickly following the shunshin, which was tobe expected. The move was flashy, used a lot of chakra, and left a clear line of the direction in which you are going. Naruto barely made it to the old fountain when Sasuke appeared ahead of him, having used his own jutsu to get there.

"I will kill your companions if you attempt to run again." Sasuke said coolly. He stood there, so prideful he didn't even consider Naruto to be a threat. Well, now to keepit that way.

Naruto glared. He didn't even say anything, knowing that Sasuke could read vocal patterns to detect people in a henge no jutsu. Naruto had not even practiced any kind of new vocal pattern. If he spoke, he was as good as dead. Well, there was always the unpredictability card. Slamming his hands together under the water, he decided to make up a jutsu. Or rather just improve on one he already had.

"Fox Summon no jutsu!" Then he just bled chakra into the water, creating steam as if from a summon. Still, that got Sasuke moving. The steam bought Naruto enough time to transform, using hot water and his chakra as a source. He felt the bones of his body shift and grow, the hair shrink and the muscle mass come back. Thankfully the cut lock of hair earlier did not corrospond to anything noticeable. The best part about returning to his male form was the benefit of being fully charged with chakra and fully healed. His ribs and all other pains were healed.

Then he made sure to make a kage bunshin with a henge of his female form standing where he just was. When the smoke suddenly got pushed away by a simple wind jutsu, Naruto was sitting there was a giant grin on his face.

"Got you, Sasuke. Now we can finish what you started at the Valley of the End!" Naruto declared, knowing that he had the man's ful attention.

"Dobe." He stated, eyes twisting into their sharingan form, thankfully not Meangekyou yet. "I have been merciful to you too many times now." He pulled out a single kunai, with nothing attached to it. "But my mercy has no room in it for one such as you."

Naruto drew his own kunai, and both leapt at the other, starting off the match with a test in taijutsu. Naruto absolutely grinned that Sasuke had chosen a midair confrontation to begin this. His new taijutsu kept him on the assault, driving the man back for the moment. Sasuke seemed to have a hard time understanding the style, but that was mainly because the style was a conglomerate of every effective midair style Naruto had ever heard of. There wasn't really any set style or forms to it, only an incorperation of abilities from all of the different styles you had trained with. Considering his taijutsu training of the last three years, and that was quite a few styles.

"You? Merciful?" Naruto demanded, using a jump kick to separate them, "That's a load of crap!"

Sasuke glared. "Then I will show you my mercy. I have a technique I have been working on, especially for you, Naruto. Enjoy it, as it will be the last thing you ever see!"

Lightning began focusing around the Uchiha's arm, coming closer and more strongly together than a normal Chidori. In fact, the normal sound of chirping was instead a screeching, a rending noise that seemed to come at Naruto. As more energy charged into the technique, he could see the light from the technique becoming blinding. That wasn't good.

Still, he used his own technique. He was back in his own body now, so he could really let loose. One hand created a Rasengan, as powerful as he could manage. The other prepared the other half, the elemental affinity chakra for the technique. Putting the two hands together, he felt the ball of power form, wings developing on the side in the shape of a shuriken.

"Ten-chi Chidori!" Sasuke yelled, throwing his technique at Naruto. It moved like a snake, moving through the air haphazardly and awkwardly.

"Fuuton: Rasen Shuriken!" His own attack went right back at Sasuke, forcing the Chidori to divert its flightpath into the opposing technique.

Both collided, energy crashing all over the place. With a sinking feeling, naruto felt the water lines snap all over the place. Cold and hot water were bubbling up all over the place, water over everything. This was not in Naruto's favor. Any lightning chakra would hit him now, due to the wet status of the environment. Still, he needed something to beat Sasuke. He could go Toad Sage mode, but then Sasuke would just go into his cursed form and counter that. So, instead he began with what he knew best.

"That was weak! My technique was developed two years ago! If this is the best you can do, then I don't even want to to fight someone so weak!" Aggravating Sasuke was fun, easy, and something he had been very good at. Unfortunately that was years ago, and this time Sasuke just focused his eyes. "Your mother must have cried in her grave when you killed the true Uchiha prodigy, Sasuke." That did it. Sasuke just began a fast series of hand seals, beginning the most epic fight Naruto had been in for years.

Of course, Hinata was stuck in her own little world. Her genjutsu was that of Naruto just simply spending time with her. She was too happy and too distracted to bother getting out of what she thought was a daydream. Sai, on the other hand, chose to communicate his distaste for Sasuke by unsealing every scroll of chakra constructs he had. The horde just charged off after his goddess and the man that dare try to take her from him. The only man to defeat his goddess would be himself! No cheap excuse for a ninja such as Sasuke Uchiha would take what he had declared was his.

Fortunately for most living breathing members of humanity, he chose instead to pass out. His chakra constructs disappeared, no longer fueled by the chakra of a lunatic.

Naruto and Sasuke were still fighting, at least an hour later, maybe two. He had gone to Mangekyou, but Naruto had countered by using his Kyuubi chakra. His toad sage mode had lead to the cursed form, and finally their summonings were an even trade off as usual. So, now they sat in the ruins of the ruined village, water overflowing the banks of the village and making small rivers connecting to each other through the broken landscape. Naruto shrugged, as it was sort of his fault the Rasen:Shuriken hit and caused that much damage. The amaterasu was just as bad, some of the dark flames still guttering here and there. That technique was hard to deal with until Naruto just hit the fire with the swamp of the underworld technique. It hardly worked, mostly just drawing the flames somewhere else to be dealt with.

"Hey, Teme," Naruto said, hoping that the Uchiha did not have enough chakra to do anything to stop this. Both were completely out of chakra, but Naruto had an ace up his sleeve. He had a third source of chakra, but he needed the time to access it. A good thirty seconds, almost impossible in a ninja duel. Unless of course, "I've got a jutsu for you. This one is gonna be the end. You ready?"

Naruto did a string of seals, which were just three seals over and over again. In reality the seals just built up the chakra in the water around him, and focused his internal chakra towards the outward part of his body. His transformation required that he place a good amount of internal chakra in the body to prepare for the pain of transforming. Naruto did not do this, instead removing the internal chakra that was in place to protect him.

Why? Because Sasuke was paranoid, and he was an Uchiha. He was already observing and copying with his sharingan eye, and his hands were following Naruto's in their seals. His chakra was already in the water around him, his control slightly better. Naruto still had crappier control, dang it, but he had more to spare. He had to have more, Sasuke was just human! So, he moved more chakra into the water around him, and then finally let it build up the feminine chakra it needed to fuel a transformation.

Sasuke followed this action, thinking the technique to be counterable. Naruto smiled at him, grinning as he held his hands in the seal needed to manipulate the water. Sasuke, like Kakashi had so long ago with Zabusa, gotten to this first and let the water rise up around him under his control. Both he and Naruto prepared at the same time, and Naruto grinned as he turned the chakra enhanced water on himself. Now he just needed a name to distract the man.

"Water Style: Reality Twist!" He yelled, thinking the name an adequate prank. Of course, that was before the pain hit him. Actually feeling what his body went through on one of these transformations hurt like he could not believe, but thankfully he was ready for that. He pulled his internal chakra into his body just in time for his internal organs to start shifting, which was usually the most painful. He closed his eyes, hoping that this worked. Feeling his face shift, he saw the place where Sasuke had been only moments before to be empty. The water was disturbed, and Naruto finally saw where the man had gone. Two sandals attached to two feet hung over a ledge, and naruto wanted to laugh very badly. Running up to Sasuke, Naruto saw one of the shortest people he had ever met that was an adult. Sasuke had been affected, just as the scroll his great grandfather had said. It could be copied.

Pulling the ninja up off the ground, Naruto could see the long hair that was a sign of shifting mass. It was the same black color, just much softer and longer. Naruto stretched, knowing that he had plenty of chakra now. With a bit of effort he painted a small seal on Sasuke's forhead, a simple unconciousness seal marking the now female ninja. Carrying Sasuke back to where Hinata was turned out to be easy, once he dropped all of the heavy gear both of them were carrying. Turning, he laughed long and loud at the ninja in his arms.

"Oh, man, have I got an idea."

Hinata was easy to free from her prison, though Naruto had no idea why she was blushing. She stumbled, catching herself and looking at him with wonder. "A G-genjutsu?" She shook her head. "What happened?"

Naruto held up Sasuke, unconscious. "I have a really good idea Hinata, but I need your help. We can get Sasuke back to the village and still be able to accomplish our mission." That promise made to Sakura so long ago looked like it could actually be fulfilled, as long as Sasuke never touched chakra again. "Can you close his tenketsu points permanently?"

Hinata nodded. "His…?" She asked curiously. Then her eyes lit up. "Your bloodline is copyable?"

Naruto nodded. "Got him because of his arrogance. So, can you make it so he can't use chakra ever again?"

She closed her eyes in thought. "Permanently, yes. Though if I do so there will be no chance for any kind of recovery. I don't have enough on hand to create a seal for that, but maybe we can keep him asleep for the trip back to Konoha…." Her mind started churning out possibilities. Still, the doubt in her eyes made Naruto think that there were not very many alternatives, and none of them good. "Will he ever learn how to change back?"

Naruto giggled. "Not if I can help it. If he passed out right before all of the changes happened he will probably think I did this to him anyways." He rubbed his chin in thought, somewhat annoyed he had no stubble there raight now. "Though he is one hundred percent correct in that. I totally just owned him in a fight! Boo ya!" Naruto considered their options, as well, while he boasted. In reality he had no choice. He had to stop Sasuke while he had the choice. "Seal his tenketsu points. We cant risk it." Hinata began to do so.

Sai groaned, over on the other side of the camp. Naruto grinned even more sadistically. "Hey Hinata, can I borrow your makeup kit?"

"Why, Naruto? Do you have something planned?"

"Yeah. You are going to love it." Hinata blushed. Naruto just smiled, finally beginning to understand that she liked him, not that this seemed to be any sort of sickness, but that she honesty liked him for who he was.

Sai awoke from his unconciousness to find himself in a small grove of trees. He was still coveredc in the signs of battle, and yet someone had dressed his wounds. He was not alone, however. Fallen and to his right was Hinata. She seemed injured, but what truly held his attention was the female that was occupying his lap. She was laying in his arms, almost as if set there by some diety. As he pondered this, he noticed that she had long black hair and a small frame. She was sleeping, his arms wrapped around her at the legs and torso.

He started to move his head around, trying to find out what happened to his red-haired goddess. He found her, though her floating in the air above him was not what he expected. The pale skin and erie glow didn't help at all either, combined with the fact that she was visibly floating. Taking a closer look, he saw that she was not casting a shadow.

"Sai…" Her voice echoed, as if she was not truly here. He focused on her face, but then he saw the kunai sticking out of her head. There was signs of blood, but it seemed ethereal. "I am dead." He saw it. Her body wasn't breathing! His Love, his Goddess, she was gone! His mind started to convulse at the thought of this. "Do not fret, my love!," She said, almost noticing his fear. He held his breath, wondering if he too must join her in the afterlife, as the Iwa ninja had mentioned. "My love, the Shinigami saw your soul, and your heart. My soul was allowed to stay, but without the any memories of this life. The body you hold is the new container of my soul, and the Shinigami have placed her in your hands, to take care of. Please, my love, protect me!" her body seemed eto be puled, straight to the heavens, her spirit gone before Sai could see where it was going.

Standing on his feet, he looked down at the woman in his arms. This was the body of his love. Pocketing his trusted scroll, he smiled. The Shinigami were proud of him. He had finally succeeded in finding out what love was! Carrying the girl that was his true love, he rushed off into the sunset, back to Konoha and where he could enjoy the rest of his life with her, or so the scroll told him.

Coming down from the branch he was hiding on, Naruto wiped off the makeup he had been using. He was holding in his laughter as long as he could, which was just long enough for Sai to leave his sight range. Rolling on the ground, he and Hinata laughed until they started crying, and then finally stopped when they were out of breath. Smiling, both looked at each other and wiped off the makeup that they had been using to disguise themselves.

"Naruto-kun," Hinata said without stuttering, "That was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. I found it exhilarating!" She blushed at Naruto. "It has given me inspiration, Naruto-kun."

Naruto smiled as he poured hot water over himself to change back. His male form had more chakra and less broken ribs than his female form did currently. "What are you going to do Hinata? Are you going to prank Kiba with this?"

Naruto's response caused her to giggle. "No, I wont prank Kiba." She sat next to him. "But I will do this…"

Naruto twisted his head just in time for her to kiss him. His reaction was to just relax into it, thanks to the fact that she hit any tenketsu point that would allow him to escape. So, he just decided to run with it. It was not like he didn't like it, quite the contrary. He really enjoyed this. Hinata finally pulled back after a long moment.

"I love you, Naruto-kun." She said, smiling and blushing from their previous contact. "I don't care what has happened to you, and I don't care what will happen to you. I just want to be there with you."

Naruto would never have truly understood this if he had not been for his newer female perspective. He understood that this was more than just words, this was a declaration of her heart. He reached out, grabbing her hand.

"I think I can get used to that." And with that, two blind members of humanity had finally found their way.

Naruto came back into Tsunade's office at the last moment he possibly could. Hiashi had been waiting right outside the Hokage tower, and they had been forced to use one of his great grandfather's stealth jutsu to get past him. Hinata had used a henge to be carried into the Hokage tower, which made Naruto smile as she changed back right in his arms. When they got back into the office, Tsunade was already glaring and seemed to be past her first bottle of sake, though it might hopefully be the one from this morning.

"Hokage-hime," Hinata spoke, seeing Naruto's fear of the empty sake bottle. "We have returned from our mission and are successful."

"Oh?" Tsunade said, curious. She did not seem to be physically threatening anyone, yet. "So, what did you find?"

"I figured out about my bloodline, and I found out that I can use it a lot easier now." Naruto said. He said this carefully so that she would not react unfavorably.

Tsunade threw her desk at Naruto, which Hinata as able to dodge. Naruto just got crushed by that and then finally by Tsunade as she jumped on top of it. "IS THAT WHY UCHIHA SASUKE SHOWED UP ON MY DOORSTEP? IS THAT WHY SAI IS IN THE MENTAL HOSPITAL? AND ON TOP OF IT ALL, WHY IS SASUKE FEMALE?"

Each word was shouted with amplified chakra into his ears. He just flinched as she drew back her fist, aiming it at his prone form, where he was unable to dodge.

"Good job, Gaki. I like it." She said, dropping his mission pay into his lap. Naruto just tried to calm down and think about what diety must have intervened in order to spare his life back there. "But you owe me." Tsunade said in a cold voice, at which Naruto shuddered.

"Um, how am I going to be paying you back?"

She grinned back maniacly. "I have here Jiraiya's will. In it he specifies that he is paying for one Super S-rank mission to satisfy the cravings of his fans." She stopped reading and grinned at Naruto, at which he felt a chill go up his spine. He was not sure, but he had a bad feeling about this. "Jiraikya saved up enough money to turn his work into a movie," She made her voice dark and scary now,"The Icha Icha Paradise Movie." Naruto paled. No, she wouldn't. There was no way he could do that, even for the old man…"Naruto, you will be the main lead, which will hopefully only take a few months of shooting." Naruto started backing up, but a shadow clone from Tsunade stopped his progress. "Did I mention she needed to be a redhead?"

Naruto made a slight gurgling sound in the back of his throat.

"Have fun gaki. For the next six months you are assigned to this mission, and I expect only the best of success. I hope you like this stuff better than your little Snow Princess!" She started laughing, grinning at him.

"B-b-b-but Baa-chan, I cant do that, he was going to base the movie off of what happened between my mom and dad!" It was not widely known, but the first edition of Icha Icha had been based off of Kushina and Minato. Jiraiya had mentioned that once or twice.

"Sounds like you are perfect for the job, Gaki."

All of Konoha heard Naruto cry out as he was ejected from the Hokage's office. Most shrugged and a few laughed, knowing the blond was back in town. No one, however, could guess that he was in such pain. Of course, he had no idea what else was going to happen. Life for Naruto Uzumaki, the new 2-faced uzumaki, would only get more complicated from here on out.

Author's note

So, this was quite the fun little fic that I wrote up. I hope you all enjoy it, hopefully as much as I did. I understand that you may think some things are out of character, but I felt like I followed things pretty closely. I skimped out on some details and rushed some others. Maybe one day I might come back to this, and edit it out and fill in some holes. I might even make a sequel if people like it enough. Until then, enjoy and look forward to some more stuff from the mind of Aberron!


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